


for gold and rust (for diamonds and dust)

by blackkat



Series: Tumblr Drabbles [61]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe - Time Travel, Fix-It, Friendship, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-09-20
Updated: 2018-10-12
Packaged: 2018-12-31 20:52:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 21,860
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12140907
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blackkat/pseuds/blackkat
Summary: Kiba's probably the only emotionally well-adjusted member of the Konoha 12, and he's been aware of that for a while. He never thought that would qualify him fortime travel, though.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> For someone on my Tumblr who alluded to this idea, and knew not what they did. I am almost sorry.

“Fuck,” Kiba whispers, bracing his back against the rock and sliding a hand under his jacket. The bandages are bleeding through again, but he’s not going to have time to change them.

Akamaru whines, leaning a little more heavily against his hip, and Kiba gives him a smile, dropping a hand to ruffle his ears. “Hey, bud, don’t worry about it. We’ve got this, don’t we? Even if I'm not quite in mint condition.”

His partner shoots him a skeptical look, but huffs, then lifts his head. Kiba doesn’t bother looking back up the narrow desert road; he already knows who’s coming, and besides, if he draws attention to them he’ll give away their advantage. And, given who they're up against, they’re going to need every second they can buy themselves. He trained with Sasuke for this, repeated the maneuver over and over in every condition, but Sasuke couldn’t account for everything.

Leaning a little harder against the trunk, Kiba ducks his head, tugging his hood forward to hide his clan markings, and hopes he can pass as a lazy drunk long enough for this to work. The chances are slim, but then, the chances of _everything_ he’s done have been slim, and he’s not about to let that stop him now.

Akamaru hunkers down, too smart to show his hackles this early, and Kiba takes a breath, scenting the air. The smell of dry scales makes him wrinkle his nose, but it’s a good sign; he hasn’t missed his opening. He’d though, for a while, about trying to get here earlier, maybe making this more of a priority than the warnings he passed on, but—

But clan is clan, and family shouldn’t hurt family, no matter their justifications. Kiba didn’t hurry, and maybe a man died, but he’s a shinobi. He’s killed people a lot more directly than through simple inaction. It doesn’t bother him any.

Hot sand smells give way to human smells, cloth and leather and metal, and Kiba closes his eyes, mapping the movements, tracing each step until he has a picture of who’s coming, how many and how they're walking. Loose formation—no need to worry in their own territory, after all, especially given who’s with them. They're definitely in for a surprise, and Kiba hasn’t changed enough since he was a child not to relish that. He grins, ignoring the pain that radiates out from his ribs, and curls his fingers into Akamaru's thick fur.

The sounds come clearer, the group rounding the outcropping of stone ahead, and Kiba shifts his feet, braces himself to move quickly. Naruto and Sasuke used to beat him on speed, because the pair of them were ridiculous in every way, but right now, back in this time period, only a handful of people can manage it, and none of them are here right now. Only a snake in green robes, and a demon sealed up in a brat.

One step more and they're past the boundary.

Instantly, Kiba's hands snap up into a seal, and with a loud bang all the smoke-bomb tags he laid go off at once. Thick, choking smoke floods the road, reinforced with chakra, and Kiba launches himself forward, feels the brush of fur as Akamaru mirrors him. He goes low, sliding under the scything curve of a wind jutsu, kicks one guard in the stomach as he rises and knocks him out with a blow to the back of the neck. Akamaru takes down a second, then a third, and Kiba follows the sound of his snarl, knocks Baki’s arm wide as a sword of spinning air forms in his hand, and slams his head forward, headbutting him hard enough to make his eyes roll back in his head as he collapses.

With a laugh—because that’s Hana’s move, very much her favorite, and passed on when he finally made jounin with a proud hair-ruffle—Kiba twists past his fallen form, dives and rolls, and flings a kunai to intercept two as they come flying at him. There's a cry, loud and furious, and a battle-fan sweeps aside part of the smoke as Temari charges at him.

Like a massive white ghost, Akamaru leaps out of the swirling smoke and flattens her bodily before she can dodge.

“Temari!” someone shouts, and an instant later something is rising, shedding sand. Not human, because it smells of wood and glue and chakra, and Kiba slides right past the puppet’s stab, flips over multi-jointed limbs, and kicks it away. He lands on all fours, launches himself forward with a touch of chakra, and crashes full-on into Karasu as the puppet pulls around to make another pass. A kick off its body, avoiding the tangling threads of chakra animating it, and he flips in the air, comes down hard right on top of Kankuro and jabs at a pressure point. The genin drops, and Kiba leaps from him to Temari, landing beside her.

“Sorry about this,” he tells her, and mostly means it. Temari's a good person, but she’ll get in the way if he doesn’t deal with her.

“You won't win!” she snarls at him, fighting Akamaru's weight, but he’s too big for her to move.

“’Course I will,” Kiba tells her cockily, and presses his fingers hard to one of her tenketsu points—an unexpected perk of being Hinata's teammate when she was learning them, and one that he appreciates now more than ever. Temari goes limp, and Kiba rises to his feet, taking a breath. No new scents, which means his count didn’t miss anyone. Which means there are just two people left to worry about.

The sand shifts under his feet, hisses and slides, and Kiba laughs, grabs Akamaru's ruff as he leaps past and vaults onto his back. Bracing himself, he reaches under his jacket, and this is more slapdash than it was supposed to be but he’s _improvising_.

Naruto would definitely approve.

A wall of sand erupts in front of them, and Akamaru flings himself over it, twist to come down on his feet right beside a tiny figure Kiba hasn’t seen in a decade. Gaara glares at him through black-ringed eyes, flat and furious, and raises a hand.

“Your blood will satisfy Mother,” he says, and—

A flicker of shunshin, and Akamaru slams into a twist of sand with all the force of the Fang Passing Fang, blowing it back as Kiba appears right in front of Gaara, seal marked in his own blood on his hand.

“Seriously, that’s _creepy_ ,” Kiba complains, and taps his palm against Gaara's forehead. Aquamarine eyes go wide in a rush, mouth opening on the beginning of a word, and sand rains down around them as his chakra flickers. Gaara crumples with a cry, clutching his head, and he looks _afraid._

If Kiba had a minute more, he’d stay and comfort him. He _will_ comfort him, but before he can, there's one last thing to take care of.

“Akamaru, protect him,” he orders, and sees Gaara's head snap up in shock. An instant later Akamaru curls himself around the kid, and Kiba takes off running, following the scent of snake. It’s not hard to find, not in the middle of a desert, and he scales a rock formation and leaps down the other side, landing right in front of the Kazekage as the man makes to flee.

“Hey there,” he says cheerfully, and offers up a smile that’s mostly teeth. “Leaving so soon, Orochimaru?”

There's a long, long pause, and then a sound of amusement. A hand comes up to pull off the hat, and as Kiba watches it changes from tanned to pale, fingers lengthening. When the green-edged veils fall away, it’s the Snake Sannin staring back at him, dangerous humor in his face.

“An Inuzuka,” he says lightly, and his eyes sweep over Kiba, from bare forehead to worn sandals. “Not one I've met before, though. You're quite a ways from home, puppy, and getting into all kinds of trouble.”

“Life’s no fun without a little trouble,” Kiba retorts. “But what you're about to start is too much even for me. So I've got an alternative offer.”

Golden eyes narrow, and Orochimaru says, silky with menace, “Do you.”

It’s not a question, but Kiba hums an affirmative, reaching into his jacket and pulling out a small notebook and a glass vial. “Information,” he says, almost a tease, and waves the book lightly. “All the info your snakey little heart could want on the perfected Edo Tensei.”

He can actually hear Orochimaru’s breath catch, see the hunger that rises in his face as he stares at the little white notebook. There's a long, long pause, but he finally tears his eyes away to glance at the vial. “And?”

This is the tricky part. Sasuke had said it would probably work, as long as Kiba could sell it. Kiba may or may not have spent all of yesterday practicing on Akamaru, who was entirely unimpressed. Hopefully Orochimaru will be an easier sell.

“Funny how the Senju died out so quickly, right?” he says, and watches Orochimaru go still, danger bleeding into every line of his body. “They weren’t exactly fertile, no matter how much power they had. I figured a smart man like yourself might want all the opportunities that come with fixing that little flaw.”

“Whose is it.” The words are flat but edged with knives, ready to draw blood, and the hair on the back of Kiba's neck prickles. He’s got good instincts, and they're just about standing up and screaming a warning right now.

“Not the Shodaime’s,” Kiba says, rocking back on his heels like he hasn’t a care, and Orochimaru doesn’t need to know that he’s fully ready to drop to all fours and use an Inuzuka-style takedown. “I figured you had enough of playing with that already. And—”

“ _Whose. Is. It._ ”

That’s enough pushing, Kiba decides. “Senju Nawaki’s,” he answers, and Orochimaru’s face was closed off before, but right now it might as well be carved of granite.

“They cremated him,” Orochimaru says coldly. “There was nothing left.”

“But his sister kept a lock of his hair,” Kiba tells him, as lightly as if it means nothing, and tries not to remember the look on Tsunade's face as she pressed it into his hands. Everyone knew this was a long shot, going back, that none of them would survive sending him, and—it made things easier, sometimes. Made them harder, too. Saying goodbye was one of the harder things.

Orochimaru takes a breath, and it’s ragged enough that he sounds like he’s been gutted. “And you stole it to give to me.”

“Willfully misappropriated,” Kiba corrects, and offers him a grin. “Though if you don’t want it, I'm pretty sure I know at least one other person who’ll happily take it off my hands. He’s probably running out of Hashirama’s DNA by now, right?”

That gets a visible reaction, Orochimaru’s eyes going wide as he takes a half-step forward. He visibly reins himself in, hands clenching into fists, and asks, “What exactly are you trying to bargain for here, boy?”

Kiba bares his teeth. “The book and the DNA in return for you leaving Konoha the fuck alone. Leaving _Uchiha Sasuke_ the fuck alone. Go back to Oto, play Headman to your orphans, and get a life.”

Orochimaru hisses, low and dangerous, but Kiba can see him wavering. His eyes flicker from book to sample tubes to Kiba and back again, and he takes a slow, careful breath.

“You have no way of knowing I’ll keep my word.”

It’s a test, clearly, but all Kiba does is shrug. “I think you’ll manage to keep yourself occupied, even without the revenge plots,” he says, “and if you don’t, I’ll tell Jiraiya where every single one of your bases is located.”

For a long moment, Orochimaru studies him narrowly, before he snorts. “Any other person I would doubt,” he says. “But you actually know, don’t you? How _intriguing_.”

Kiba rolls his eyes. “Yeah, yeah. Obsess later. Are you taking the deal or not?”

“I’ll take it,” Orochimaru agrees, though his sharp gaze doesn’t waver from Kiba. “But I get the feeling you already knew that, too.”

“Hoped,” Kiba corrects cheerfully, flipping him the book and vial for the sheer pleasure of watching the composed Snake Sannin scramble to grab both. He turns away, raising a hand, and calls, “Enjoy. Try not to give too many little kids nightmares, all right?”

Orochimaru stays silent, watching him go with that same heavy stare, but Kiba doesn’t look back. He scales the rocks in a few easy leaps, slides down the far side to land in the dust, and lopes over to the big white lump lying in the road.

“Yo,” he says, more to announce himself than anything, and Akamaru raises his head and barks a greeting. He uncurls slightly, revealing Gaara still pressed up against his side, hand fisted in his fur.

“Doing okay, kid?” Kiba asks, dropping into a crouch beside him. He grins when Gaara looks at him warily, and doesn’t try to move closer. “Akamaru gives the best cuddles, doesn’t he?”

There's a pause, and then Gaara says quietly, “You did something to me. I can't hear mother’s voice anymore.”

Kiba scoffs. “Well, _yeah_. ‘Cause that wasn’t your mother. You know you’ve got a bijuu in you already, I figured you should at least be able to tell when it’s talking to you.”

Gaara presses a hand to his forehead, and Kiba's seal has faded into his skin, but he still rubs his fingers over the spot where it lies, like he can still feel it. “You used a seal,” he says, almost an accusation. “Like the one the Kazekage put on me.”

 _Kazekage_ , not _father_ , and clearly Rasa wasn’t winning any parenting awards but Kiba still wants to find wherever Orochimaru stashed his corpse and set it on fire. You don’t _do that_ to your own pack.

“I did,” he confirms, and meets Gaara's eyes squarely. “Somebody else designed it just to fix your seal, since it was broken. I figured asking forgiveness was better than asking permission in this case. It’d be hard to fix anything as a bloody smear on the sand.”

Gaara doesn’t quite flinch, but he looks away, to where his hand disappears into white fur. “And then you told your dog to protect me. You…confuse me.”

Kiba chuckles, leaning forward, and lightly pats Gaara on the head. He doesn’t even lose his hand for his troubles, and the look Gaara gives him is worth the risk—wide, bewildered eyes, expression full of shock, mouth gaping. “’Course,” he agrees. “You're a jinchuuriki, but you're also a kid. And, if you want, there's another jinchuuriki kid who I think you’d like to meet.”

“Another,” Gaara says slowly, still watching Kiba carefully.

Pushing to his feet, Kiba offers him a hand. “Come on, take a break from Suna for a while and I’ll show you some really fucking awesome stuff. Like rain. And grass. And _trees_ , damn, I miss trees so fucking much. Naruto will decide you're his friend the minute he sees you, and—”

“ _Friend_ ,” Gaara repeats, entirely bewildered by the idea. “I don’t—I have no friends—”

“Sure you do!” Kiba tells him cheerfully. “You’ve got me an’ Akamaru, so that’s two, right?”

Gaara doesn’t seem to know what to do with that declaration, either, but this time, when Kiba waves a prompting hand at him, he very precisely sets his fingers against Kiba's and allows himself to be pulled to his feet.

 

 

Kotetsu and Izumo are on gate duty when they saunter up to Konoha's gates—well, _Kiba_ saunters, because he’s the cool one, while Akamaru pads along behind, Gaara perched on his back and looking overwhelmed. He hasn’t stopped muttering about green since they crossed the Suna border, and he keeps craning his neck like he’s trying to see the tops of the trees. It’s cute, and it’s not like Kiba is going to make him _stop_.

“Hey!” he says cheerfully, because half of getting away with _anything_ is bravado and owning the act, and Kiba's brilliant at both. “Kamizuki, Hagane. Not running errands for the Hokage for once?”

Kotetsu blinks, stares at Kiba for a moment like he’s trying to place his face, and then clearly decides to just roll with it. “Inuzuka. Not today. Everything’s been pretty quiet.”

There are advantages to so clearly being an Inuzuka, Kiba thinks, and grins. “Just what we need, with the Exams coming up,” he says, and Izumo makes a face.

“Don’t even start,” he says tiredly. “Ibiki’s been on a rampage getting everyone ready.” His eyes flicker to Gaara and he pauses, hesitates, and asks, “And your…apprentice? Are you entering him?”

Gaara drags his eyes off the leaves behind them, head snapping around, but before he can say anything to give the game away Kiba waves a hand. “Gaara could totally kick everyone’s asses without even trying,” he says, and Gaara looks like he doesn’t know whether to smile or not. It’s a work in progress.

Kotetsu chuckles, waving them through. “Of course, of course. You wouldn’t _believe_ how many jounin I've heard that one from.”

“It’s true!” Kiba protests, but he waves a goodbye and heads into the village, Akamaru at his elbow.

When he looks up, Gaara is staring at him, ringed eyes calculating. “…You lied to them,” he says suspiciously.

“I did not,” Kiba protests, though mildly, and shoves his hands in the pockets of his jacket. He winces when he brushes the closing knife wound Hidan gave him, but it’s healing and he’s not dead, so it’s not like it matters. Hidan isn’t dead either, though that’s probably less of an accomplishment, honestly. Still, Kiba warned the bastard about Akatsuki, and invited him to come to Konoha if he’s really that sick of Yugakure turning into a tourist trap. Maybe he won't take Kiba up on it, but Kiba gets the feeling he will. The guy’s bored out of his mind.

After another moment, Gaara clearly decides to let it go, turning away to stare at the greenery-covered buildings that line the street. “The other jinchuuriki is here?” he asks.

Team 7 is probably back from Wave by now, Kiba judges. And he _could_ wait to throw Gaara at Naruto, but why bother? It’ll be good for both of them. “He is. Want to go meet him?”

Gaara freezes, fingers twisting in Akamaru's fur, and Akamaru barks at him, just once but pointed.

“You can totally do it,” Kiba agrees, ruffling Akamaru's ears. “Fuck, Naruto's going to be _overjoyed_ to meet you.” And maybe Kiba can nudge Sasuke and Sakura towards being a more functional team while he’s hanging around supervising, because _goddamn_ does Team 7 need some help. No Orochimaru and his Curse Mark to tear them apart here, but they’ll do that to themselves without a lot of maneuvering.

Sasuke asked him to make things better, Kiba thinks, and hopes his smile isn’t as bittersweet as it feels. Least he can do at this point, right? He’s the only one left, after all.

The path to the Memorial Stone is well-remembered, but Kiba turns away before they reach the Stone itself, heads for the bridge where he knows Team 7 used to meet. By the smell of it, they're already there, probably waiting for Kakashi, and Kiba grins to himself, feeling his pulse pick up. Not _his_ Naruto and Sakura and Sasuke, but still family, still _pack_. He bounces on is toes, and Akamaru barks excitedly, running a tight circle around him that makes Gaara grab for a handhold. Gaara doesn’t look like he wants to protest, though, because there's the faintest edge of a smile pulling at one corner of his mouth, and he definitely doesn’t slide off.

“This is going to be _great_ ,” Kiba tells Gaara, grinning. “Konoha's awesome, you’ll see.”

Gaara stares at him for a moment, then huffs quietly and looks away. He doesn’t answer, but he looks vaguely flushed, and Kiba wonders for a moment whether he should worry about that before a shout attracts his attention.

Sasuke and Naruto, facing off. Of course it is, he thinks fondly, and whistles, high and sharp enough to make all three genin wince.

“Hey!” Naruto shouts, all the blatant bluster he used to default to now so clear in his face as he puffs up. Kiba kind of wants to scoop him up and hug him, he’s so cute, but he’s willing to give it a day or two before tries that. “You jerk, don’t do that! We’ve got ears too you know!”

“Why do you think I did it?” Kiba retorts, grinning. He doesn’t think he could wipe the expression off his face if he tried. “You brats need to cool it sometimes, you know that? You might scare people off. Like Gaara.”

Naruto's blue eyes follow the lazy wave of his hand to Gaara, who gives Kiba a flat look, then makes a sound of surprise when Akamaru suddenly sits down, dropping him on his feet.

“Who’re you?” Naruto demands. “You weren’t in the Academy with us!”

But Gaara isn’t looking at Naruto's pointing finger. He’s staring past it, at Naruto's face and the whisker marks, and almost unconsciously he reaches up to touch his own markings, fingertips glancing over the dark rings around his eyes. “You're…really like me,” he says, almost wondering.

Naruto blinks, stance wavering. “What?” he asks, but it isn’t nearly as belligerent this time, closer to tentative. He flicks a glance at Kiba, then at Sasuke and Sakura, who are both watching with confusion, and—

 _Oh_ , Kiba thinks, and wants to smack himself for it.

“Hey, _I_ can't talk about all the ways you're the same,” he says, and when Naruto's wide eyes snap to him he winks. “Now that there's two of you, though, _you_ might want to share it with someone. Maybe a pair of someones. Helps with teamwork, right?”

Naruto visibly flinches.

“Hey,” Sasuke says sharply, and his eyes are dark and angry, fixed on Kiba. “Who even are you?”

Sakura flicks a glance from Naruto to Gaara to Kiba, biting her lip, and then squares her shoulders. “We’re going to be meeting our sensei shortly,” she says, and on the surface it’s perfectly polite, but Kiba can see a thread of steel in her eyes that’s going to turn into a spine of titanium in the near future. “I'm sorry, but—”

“Nah,” Kiba says lightly, and he offers the three of them a rueful smile. Stupid, to forget that this Naruto still thinks of Kurama as a monster, is still hated by pretty much everyone. Gods, he hasn’t even met Jiraiya yet, or Tsunade. “Sorry, my mouth ran away with me there. You’re fine, Naruto, don’t mind me.”

“Who _are_ you?” Naruto asks, no longer hostile, but far closer to bewildered.

“Inuzuka Kiba,” he says cheerfully, because a fake name would be fun but there's no way in hell he’d remember to answer it. And the game would be up the first time someone addressed his younger self. Kiba's a pretty common Inuzuka name, too. Nothing weird about more than one person having it. “An’ this is my partner, Aka—”

Akamaru cuts him off with a happy bark, settling the issue of giving _him_ a fake name, and lets his tongue loll out as he grins at Naruto.

Kiba glances at Gaara, raising a brow, and after a second Gaara nods. “I'm Sabaku no Gaara,” he says, and would probably tense if Kiba didn’t take the opportunity to loop an arm around his skinny shoulders and hang on him a little.

“Cool,” Kiba says, and vaults up to sit on the rail of the bridge. “Now that we’re all introduced, I can ask how long you’ve been waiting. Because it’s already been like ten minutes, and your teacher _still_ isn’t here, so unless you're all way early I'm calling bullshit.”

Sakura flushes a little, looking down at her hands, and she’s so _different_ from the woman Kiba said goodbye to a few months ago. It’s almost jarring, really. He’d forgotten how much Sakura changed. “We—he just—”

“He’s so _late_!” Naruto complains loudly. “Always!”

“Hn,” Sasuke agrees, looking annoyed. Probably at Kakashi more than Naruto, for once.

Kiba snorts, thumping his heels against the railing, and considers the four of them. Gaara has sidled back to lean beside him, watching Naruto closely even though he spares part of his attention for the other two, and Kiba nudges him with the toe of his sandal. “Anyone ever drag you into playing ninja tag?” he asks the redhead. When Gaara just gives him a blank look, Kiba reminds himself all over again just how thankful he is that Kurenai was an amazing teacher and shakes his head. “That’s _tragic_ , okay, come on. We can totally play until your teacher gets here.” Catching Sasuke and Sakura both opening their mouths, he rolls his eyes and adds, “It’s good training.”

“Tag?” Naruto asks skeptically, screwing up his face. “Isn’t that for little kids?”

“ _Ninja tag_ ,” Kiba corrects, exasperated. Except he shouldn’t be, because it’s not like any of them actually grew up in any sort of functional clan. Ugh. He rubs his temple, then explains, “It’s a way to practice tree climbing and kawarimi and shunshin and shit. One person is it, and does whatever they can to tag someone. Whoever they tag first becomes it, and you keep going as long as you can manage.”

Various traded looks, and then all of a sudden Naruto bounces up, punching the air. “Yeah!” he says excitedly. “Like another mission, but in the village! I’ll totally be the best, believe it!”

“Don’t _yell_ , dead last,” Sasuke snaps immediately. “And you can't even do a shunshin.”

“Neither can you!” Naruto puffs up, glaring at him.

Deep offense settles across Sasuke's face. “Of course I can. _And_ kawarimi.”

“We learned how in the Academy,” Sakura points out. “The theory, at least. So, we _could…_ ”

“Yeah! I'm gonna be the best and you can't stop me!”

“Shut _up_ , you are not.”

Gaara turns and levels a very flat look at Kiba.

Laughing, Kiba rubs Akamaru's ears. Maybe not the way he _planned_ to help, but. Well.

Improvisation. He’s pretty sure the family he came back to save would approve.


	2. Chapter 2

Kakashi is very deliberately not watching the clock, despite the pointed looks Kurenai keeps sending him. He’s at a very, uh, _intriguing_ part of his book, and it doesn’t matter that he’s read it so many times the pages are getting worn, he has to finish it or he’ll be left, ahem, _unsatisfied_ all day.

Besides, if Kurenai gave her team the day off she should be somewhere else, relaxing, not finishing up her paperwork and judging Kakashi’s habits.

The door of the Jounin Standby Station crashes open with a careless bang, and Kakashi covertly glances up just in time to see Kotetsu and Izumo clump through, all of their attention on each other. It’s always a little amusing that the two—chuunin, even if they are elite chuunin—have simply made themselves at home in the Standby Station, but at this point Kakashi isn’t entirely certain he could imagine the place without their bickering.

“—Tsuyu? Was it Tsuyu?” Kotetsu is saying, expression scrunched up. “I could swear—”

“Tsuyu is a girl,” Izumo tells him, though he looks faintly confused as well. “She transitioned years ago now. Maybe…Momo? I haven’t seen him since we graduated, so…”

“His dog was dark grey, not white,” Kotetsu points out, and then huffs when Izumo rolls his eyes at him. “ _What_?”

“Of course you’d remember the dog but not our _classmate_ ,” Izumo says despairingly.

“Hey! Maybe he was in a different class, I don’t know.”

“Well, he definitely remembered _us_ , and I feel bad now.”

“You're too nice,” Kotetsu says in disgust, but as soon as Izumo settles onto the couch across from Kakashi Kotetsu sprawls out and drops his head in the other man’s lap. “It was fine, calling him ‘Inuzuka’ was good enough. He didn’t care.”

“That student of his was cute,” Izumo says a little wistfully. “I hope he survives the Exams.”

Kotetsu just tips one shoulder in a lazy shrug. “If the rest of his team got killed or something, they might aim for a field promotion instead. Like what Anko got, remember?”

Well, this conversation is certainly more interesting than avoiding Kurenai’s pointed looks. Kakashi glances up, raising a brow, and asks, “Did someone get back from a border patrol?”

There's a moment of silence as Kotetsu and Izumo blink at him, then at each other, and then Izumo groans, smacking himself in the forehead. “I didn’t even _think_ about that,” he complains.

“Those long-term border patrols would definitely take him out of the village for long enough for us to forget,” Kotetsu agrees, making a face. “And he looked pretty beaten up. I didn’t think they let apprentices go out on trips like that, though.”

Kakashi hums. “If they were working on something specialized, the Hokage might allow it,” he corrects, then glances between them. “A jounin?”

Kotetsu shrugs. “I assume so. He wasn’t wearing a uniform, but who else would get a student? And no way an Inuzuka would let someone who wasn’t family treat their nin-dog like a pony.”

Pausing, Kakashi tries to remember how many jounin the Inuzuka Clan currently has—not many, he’s fairly certain, because they tend to stay within the chuunin ranks given their specialized skillsets. And while it’s not unusual for one to make tokubetsu jounin, tokujo don’t normally end up with students unless they're _very_ skilled.

“A man?” he asks, because that cuts the number down even further, with how most of the powerful members of the Inuzuka are women.

Izumo must catch something in his tone, because he looks up, expression a little wary. “Probably about our age, brown hair, goatee, clan markings on his cheeks. White nin-dog, bigger than normal.”

That doesn’t sound like any jounin Kakashi has met before, and he knows most of them by sight, if not personally. He frowns a little, knowing his mask will hide it, and asks, “And the apprentice?”

Kotetsu sits up, and there's alarm brewing in dark eyes. “Kakashi?” he asks. “Do you think…?”

Kakashi hums, but rises to his feet. Maybe it’s nothing, but…the Chuunin Exams are coming up, and it’s a security nightmare already. If someone could sneak into the village, make sure they were already well-placed before security really started to tighten, they’d be in the perfect position to take out at least three Kage, or the majority of a village’s genin. Kakashi’s too recently come from ANBU not to be entirely suspicious of someone no one can recognize just waltzing through the gates like that.

“He headed east,” Izumo says, and he rises too, pulling Kotetsu up with him. “I’ll check the market district.”

“And I’ll check the training grounds,” Kotetsu agrees, and Kakashi feels a flicker of instinct, halfway to fear. His team is waiting near the Memorial Stone, far enough away from the village proper that no one will likely pass by, and Naruto and Sasuke are both valuable targets for bounty hunters or anyone with a political agenda.

“Come on,” he tells Kotetsu, and the chuunin casts him a started glance, but follows without comment as Kakashi heads out the door, moving just slightly faster than he would otherwise. A leap carries him up to the rooftop of the building across the way, and a moment later Kotetsu lands beside him, then vanishes in a cyclone of leaves. Kakashi doesn’t need to mark where he’s going to appear; he heads for the training ground with long strides, and trusts Kotetsu will keep up.

The bridge is empty when they touch down, though Kakashi’s team was definitely here just minutes ago; Sakura is using a new perfume, and it makes Kakashi wrinkle his nose to fight off a sneeze. There's no sign of them now, though, and Kakashi tips his head, taking a breath—

“There,” Kotetsu says, low and sharp, and slips a sealing scroll out of his pocket, though he doesn’t unroll it quite yet. Kakashi follows the direction of his gaze towards the dense trees and catches a flash of white fur against the undergrowth. The dog, he thinks, and it really is bigger than normal—larger than Bull, at the very least. Not a mark against the man being an Inuzuka, but the fact that it’s something out of the ordinary is enough to raise Kakashi’s hackles.

And then—

A laugh, loud and bright and so much like Kushina's that it twinges deep down in Kakashi’s chest. A spot of gold and orange comes flying out of the forest, barely missing Kakashi, and a snarl rises from behind him. Sasuke hurtles after Naruto as Naruto changes direction hard, almost crashes into Kakashi, and flips over just in time to avoid him. Bringing his hands up, he makes a nearly constipated expression as his fingers shape a familiar seal, and there's a halfhearted burst of leaves. The shunshin carries Sasuke a handful of yards, but it’s just enough to put him in front of Naruto, who yelps in horror and leaps up as Sasuke lunges for him.

A puff of smoke, and a stick drops on top of Sasuke's head as Naruto reappears in the trees. He sticks his tongue out at Sasuke, expression victorious, and Sasuke growls, shoving to his feet with a murderous expression. Instantly, alarm flashes across Naruto's face, and he bolts back into the trees. Sasuke takes one step to follow him, then hears a rustle and spins, sending three kunai spinning through the air.

There's a rough laugh, and a man twists out of the way. He catches one kunai between his teeth, knocks the other two out of the air with a casually tossed kunai of his own, and then ducks a flying kick that carries Sasuke right over his head. The massive white dog barks, and the brown-haired man sidesteps another kick from Sasuke, grabs the dog’s fur, and vaults onto its back as the nin-dog races for the trees. Sasuke mutters a curse as he lands, eyes narrowed, and follows at a run.

Kakashi isn’t quite sure what’s going on here.

From beside him, there's a loud snort, and Kotetsu rocks back on his heels. “Tag,” he says, halfway to incredulous. “They’re playing _ninja tag_. I was expecting a lot more blood and screaming.”

From deeper into the trees comes a loud shriek, full of fury, and Kakashi winces, more than able to recognize Sakura at her most offended. He sighs, scrubbing a hand through his hair, and wonders how he’s supposed to deal with this.

“Well,” Kotetsu amends, “more _blood_ , at least.”

Kakashi’s glad one of them is enjoying this.

“Don’t destroy any trees, Gaara!” the man calls. “Watch your left!”

“Stop _helping_ him,” Sasuke protests, out of breath and vaguely put out. “He’s the only one who hasn’t gotten caught, he’s _fine_.”

Another laugh, edged with wicked humor. “What, I can't have a favorite? He’s cuter than you are, Uchiha.”

That half-strangled snarl of frustration usually only comes out when Sasuke's been dealing with Naruto for more than twelve hours straight, so the man managing to get it after less than an hour is rather impressive. There's a flare of chakra, a scuffle, and then—

“Damn it, dead last! Get out of my way!”

“Ow! I'm not _in_ your way, teme, you changed directions and ran into _me_! Get off!”

“Naruto, get off of Sasuke! You're crushing him!”

“I am not! He’s on top of _me_!”

“Geez, you two,” the man laughs, and Kakashi takes a long leap into the trees, crouching on the first bough. He’s in just the right spot to look down on the confusion, Sasuke and Naruto wrestling in a way that’s become unfortunately familiar and the maybe-Inuzuka leaning forward, still perched on his dog’s back. His arms are crossed on the beast’s head, and he’s grinning down at the slender, redheaded boy who’s just stepped up next to him. The child isn’t anyone Kakashi knows, though that’s not very much of a surprise with the way he avoids the Academy, but he has a hand in the nin-dog’s fur in a way that speaks of familiarity, and he’s looking up at the man with an expression that wants to be blank but is shading towards exasperation instead.

“I thought we were playing tag,” the redhead says, and it sounds vaguely judgmental.

The strange man laughs, ruffling his hair, and the boy’s cheeks flush as he ducks his head. “Yeah, well, since their sensei’s finally here I figure we should put the game on hold,” he says easily, not even looking up at Kakashi despite how the words are largely directed at him.

Sakura, off to the side and yelling at Naruto, squeaks and spins, looking around for Kakashi. Deciding that that’s enough of a cue, Kakashi lets a deliberately flashy shunshin carry him down into the center of the tiny clearing, book in hand.

“Yo,” he says, and offers a smile for his students, though he keeps most of his attention on the stranger. “Having fun, my cute little students?”

“You're _late_!” Naruto shrieks, rivalling Sakura for pitch as he scrambles to his feet. “We’ve been waiting for _hours_!”

“Hn,” Sasuke grunts, which is more or less a stringent agreement. He gets up, brushing off his clothes and pointedly looking away, arms crossed over his chest just to add another touch of _clearly I don’t care but fuck you anyway_ to his aura.

Gods, but Kakashi _hates_ being a teacher.

The stranger chuckles, low and amused, and offers the redheaded boy a hand up. “Well, I guess we’ll leave you to it, then. Come on, Gaara.”

“No, no,” Kakashi says mildly, because he’s a firm believer in _keep your friends at arm’s length and your enemies close enough to stab_. “You're already here, why don’t you stay. We can all train together.”

The man blinks, then raises a brow at him. When Kakashi just gives him a cheerful smile in return, he hesitates, then glances down at Gaara. The boy looks back, clearly leaving the decision up to him, and the man huffs but smiles regardless.

“All right,” he says easily, and slides off his dog’s back. “I’ll need a second to change my bandages, but we can hang out here for a bit.”

Kakashi freezes, because being wounded is…not something an infiltrator would want to admit to. Not something they would allow to _happen_ , before they infiltrated a place, because it’s far too much of a risk. Unless it’s a misdirection, but that’s easy enough to prove if the man is pretending to be a friend. And if he _is_ using it as a misdirection, but the wound is real, he’s giving someone who could be his enemy direct knowledge of a weakness.

“You're hurt?” Sakura takes a step forward, sounding worried. “And you were playing tag anyway?”

“It’s fine,” the man says, as breezy as any shinobi with a wound even slightly less than mortal. “Just a scratch, I swear.”

Kakashi can almost _feel_ the collective spirit of all medics everywhere start to scowl.

A small hand tugs on the edge of the man’s fur-lined jacket, and Gaara says, “I can help, Kiba.”

The man smiles even as he shakes his head. “It’s really fine. Why don’t you do some stretches with the others? I’ll be there in a sec.”

Gaara gives him a faintly disbelieving look, but nods, and Kiba ruffles his hair again. “Thanks, Gaara. Okay, you big lump, you go with him, too.”

The dog makes an offended sound, but follows Gaara anyway, dwarfing the boy completely. Though as far as that goes, Gaara hardly seems to notice, even leans into the nin-ken’s bulk rather than away. Sakura smiles at Gaara as he joins them, and Gaara blinks at her, then at Naruto as he bounces over to chatter happily at both of them. Sasuke drifts after them as they make for the riverbank, but he looks slightly less scowly than normal, so Kakashi is going to tentatively put him down as pleased with the way their game went. It’s a little surprising; Kakashi’s been avoiding making them play tag in the fears that Sasuke and Naruto would get too competitive and ruin what fragile teamwork they’ve started to build, but apparently all they needed to make it work was an outside influence.

One third of said influence groans a little, sinking down against the bole of a tree as soon as the genin are out of sight. With a wince, he peels his coat off, and Kakashi can't help but raise a brow at the sight of a spreading stain of red against his black shirt. The smell of blood is easy enough to pick out now that he’s not distracted, and he crouches down in front of the man, immediately pulling the sealing scroll with his medical supplies out of his weapons pouch.

“That looks like something you should see a medic about,” he says mildly, eyeing the muscle revealed as the man carefully pulls his shirt up over his head. Clinical assessment, for the most part, though Kakashi can always spare a moment to admire a pretty body.

Kiba—and really, he couldn’t have picked a more basic Inuzuka name than that, which is suspicious enough already—grunts and starts unwinding the soaked bandages. “Yeah, well, I've survived this long, it’ll be fine. ‘Sides, I usually try not to jump around this much, but none of them had ever played ninja tag before, and that’s a fucking _tragedy_.”

It should be a lie, a platitude, an excuse, but Kakashi can't see anything but sincerity on his face, can't smell a hint of deception in him. He studies the man’s face as he wraps gauze into a thick pad, but Kiba's apparently occupied cursing and splashing disinfectant over the wound, and doesn’t stare back. It gives Kakashi the opportunity to look him over when he’s relatively vulnerable, and—

He’s scarred. Scarred the way most survivors of the Second Shinobi War are, in thick swathes that were clearly only haphazardly treated when he got them. This knife wound, long and deep, is clearly not the worst he’s gotten in the past few years, and it makes Kakashi wonder just where he was and what he was doing to end up hurt so many times. He doesn’t ask, just spreads antibacterial cream on the gauze and offers it up.

Kiba takes it with a grimace, pressing it over the wound and hissing quietly. “Thanks,” he says, like he didn’t just give Kakashi his weakness if this devolves into a fight. “Extra hands definitely make it easier.”

There's a thread of wistfulness in the words that catches Kakashi’s attention, and he flicks a glance from the wound to Kiba's face. He’s smiling, a little, in a way that manages to be sincere and rueful all at once. Kakashi recognizes that expression, for all that he wishes he didn’t; it’s hard not to, when it’s the same one he wears whenever he stands in front of the Memorial Stone.

He still doesn’t smell any trace of deception, though, can't catch any hint of it in Kiba's body language. If this man is an actor, he’s one of the best Kakashi has ever encountered.

“Lean forward,” Kakashi says instead of answering, and Kiba moves without hesitation, tipping his head to the side and angling his upper body out of the way as he bends forward. That’s a vulnerable position too, and Kakashi knows enough Inuzuka to understand that they don’t show their throats to people who aren’t pack. Either Kiba doesn’t know that, which is sloppy reconnaissance work at best, or—

Or he trusts that Kakashi won't tear his throat out. Trusts him like _pack_ , and Kakashi has no idea what to do with that, it’s been so long since he had it.

It takes him a long moment, but he finally leans in, passing a length of bandages around Kiba's chest and carefully pulling them taut. Kiba obligingly holds still, in a way that says he’s treated a lot of injuries like this, in the field and on the move, and knows that trying to hold the wraps in place for Kakashi will just make them end up loose. Like treating another ANBU member, Kakashi thinks, and doesn’t _want_ to, but…

He doesn’t know every shinobi in ANBU personally. If Kiba was ANBU from the time he was a chuunin, if he was promoted while a black ops member, there’s a logical reason why Kakashi wouldn’t recognize him, especially since Kiba looks several years younger than him. Kakashi usually took solo missions, after all, and had to be dragged into socializing by Tenzō and Genma when he allowed it at all.

The problem, Kakashi thinks, a little wryly, is that he _wants_ to believe. Kiba is sending all the right signals to mark him as an ally, and with him wounded, with the way he was treating the kids, that’s enough to make Kakashi’s brain write him off as a friendly. Bad if he’s a spy, which Kakashi supposes is the point of doing it in the first place.

Or maybe he’s an ally after all, and Kakashi is just overreacting, still caught up in the tension of the disastrous Wave mission.

“The Inuzuka compound is on the other side of the village,” he says mildly, and it’s a test, but he isn’t sure whether he wants Kiba to pass it or not. “If you came in through the western gate, you're taking the long way around.”

Kiba huffs, amused, and waits for Kakashi to secure the wrappings before he carefully leans back. “Yeah, well, Gaara's been alone for a long time. I figured some company his own age would be good for him. ‘Sides, we’ve been taking it easy the past few days. Not exactly a strenuous trip from the River Country border. No need to fall down in a coma the second we hit the village.”

That’s debatable for most shinobi below jounin rank—missing-nin and bandits haunt most of the roads once they get further away from the Hidden Villages, to the point where protection missions are some of the most common—but it likely speaks to Kiba's skill level. Especially if he’s traveling with a genin. Kakashi hums lightly, doesn’t let himself think about Wave and how he came so terrifyingly close to losing his own genin. It’s easier to study Kiba, looking for any hints that he isn’t exactly who he says he is, and there are too many but at the same time not enough. He’s a puzzle, and with him being so close to Naruto and Sasuke, Kakashi doesn’t appreciate it anywhere near as much as he otherwise would.

Before Kakashi can ask anything else, there's a rustle of leaves, and Gaara pushes through, pale eyes immediately going to Kiba. He walks over, steady and deliberate steps that somehow manage to be worried at the same time, and sinks down on the ground at his elbow, scanning the bandages for a moment.

“You're not healing,” he observes with concern.

Kiba huffs, nudging him lightly in the side. “Not like _you_ would,” he agrees. “This takes time in us mere mortals, you know. And shouldn’t you be stretching?”

The look Gaara gives him is entirely unimpressed. “I already ran more than normal. I don’t need to stretch.”

That makes Kiba roll his eyes. “Everyone needs to stretch before they train, Gaara.” He gets a hand on the tree trunk and heaves himself to his feet, wincing faintly, and then offers Gaara a hand. “Come on, I’ll do it too.”

“You're hurt.” Despite the words, Gaara takes his hand anyway, letting Kiba pull him to his feet. “Shouldn’t you…” He hesitates, like he’s not sure what injured people are supposed to actually do.

With a quiet snort, Kiba tugs him a step closer, leaning on him like it’s for support, even though Kakashi can see he doesn’t really need it. “So that’s a no to training for today?”

Gaara pauses, clearly considering. “We can come back?”

“Yeah, sure. ‘S long as Kakashi-sensei’s okay with it,” Kiba agrees easily, and Gaara turns to fix Kakashi with a steady, intent look that doesn’t have enough emotion behind it to be pleading but is clearly intended to be.

Kakashi wonders if he should say yes, if he should say no. Benefits to both, depending on whether Kiba is telling the truth about who he is.

“That’s fine,” he allows after a moment, then makes a decision and offers Kiba a bright, entirely fake smile. “Let me walk you back to your clan. Just in case those bandages come off.”

Gaara looks relieved, but Kiba shoots Kakashi a look that says he knows exactly what this is about and it’s amusing him. “Sure,” he says without hesitation, then whistles. A moment later his dog comes leaping through the bushes, lands hard, and bounces up to his side. Kiba laughs, ruffling his ears, and boosts Gaara up onto his back. “Having fun, boy?” he asks the dog, who barks cheerfully. “Yeah, I know. Good to be home, right?”

With a huff of agreement, the dog noses Kakashi’s hip in greeting, then bounds ahead of them, out towards the main road. Kiba chuckles, shoving his hands in the pockets of his jacket, and watches the dog and genin with fond eyes.

“Been away long?” Kakashi asks, and that’s a test too, even if he covers it by pulling out his book again.

Kiba's smile is wistful. “Way too damn long. But I don’t plan on leaving again any time soon.”

Damn it. Kakashi doesn’t _want_ him to be a spy, or an infiltrator, or some kind of enemy, which practically guarantees that he will be, given Kakashi’s luck.

He hums lightly in acknowledgement, but doesn’t try to dig any further, just keeps his eye on his book as they meander around the outskirts of Konoha towards Inuzuka lands. Kiba seems content to let the silence linger as well, watching his companions as they scout the path ahead. There’s no hesitation in Kiba's steps, no surprise at anything in their path, and Kakashi can't help but wonder if that’s a sign of familiarity or just a long time spent spying.

At the gates of the compound, Kiba doesn’t pause, just offers a cheerful wave to the lone guard, who smiles back. The dog hurries ahead, barking a greeting, and there's a low woof in return. Kiba lifts his head, picking up his pace a little, and all but trots through the gate, calling, “Hey! That’s the only hello I'm going to get? Kuromaru at least has manners!”

Kakashi pauses in the shadow of the wall, watching carefully, and sees the exact moment Tsume notices there's an intruder. She looks away from the Inuzuka woman she’s speaking with, turning sharply, and her eyes land on the dog, flicker up to the man, and go wide. It’s instinctive for Kakashi to brace himself for shouts and violence, to start reaching for a kunai—

Tsume takes a breath, catches the scent, and takes a half-step forward. “ _Kiba_?” she demands, incredulous and bewildered. “Kiba, what did you _do_?”

Kiba's expression splits into a grin, and he rocks back on his heels, opening his arms. “Hey, Mom,” he says cheerfully. “How’ve you been?”


	3. Chapter 3

_Mom_ , Kiba thinks, and he knows he’s grinning like an idiot but she’s _right there_ and nothing on earth could make him stop. It’s been a hell of a long time since he last saw his immediate family, even if the Inuzuka as a whole were able to last a good while longer.

There's a long, long moment of silence as Tsume stares at him, and Kiba beams back, trying hard to resist the urge to just fling himself at her. If he starts hugging her, he probably won't let go for a good long while, and Kiba _is_ totally capable of understanding what a shock this probably is. Well, not _probably_ ; her son from twelve years in the future is right in front of her, without explanation. Not that she’s likely going to wait long to drag it out of him.

A sharp huff, and then Tsume takes five long steps forward, still looking bewildered. Kuromaru is at her heels, ears pricked with interest, but he doesn’t look quite as angry as Tsume as he goes nose-to-nose with Akamaru. Tsume flicks a glance at him, then a glance at Kiba, narrow-eyed and assessing, and Kiba has to swallow before he can make himself meet her stare. It’s been—gods, two years for him? Almost three now, maybe. The world started going nuts and there wasn’t any time to slow down, to stop, and Kiba was out of the village when the earthquake hit. Looking for Sasuke, actually, and he’d found him, but—

He’d come home to the news that his only immediate family was dead, and he hadn’t even gotten to say goodbye.

There aren’t any mirrors in evidence, so Kiba has no idea what kind of face he’s making, but whatever it is, Tsume’s eyes widen a little. She stops, staring at him, flicks a glance down to the drying blood on his shirt, the scars on his arms, the rings of seals peeking out from under the braces around his wrists. Her lips twist, pained, and she reaches for him without another moment of hesitation.

Kiba practically launches himself across the space between them, crashes into her chest and wraps his arms around her with strength that has to be close to bruising. There's no protest, though; Tsume hugs him back, lets him bury his face in her collarbone like he hasn’t since he was a teenager. With a shuddering breath, Kiba presses closer, closes his eyes and breathes her in, tells himself that this is just a homecoming after a long mission, not a resurrection, even if that’s what it feels like.

“Mom,” he says, and it comes out more choked than he thought it would, strangled with all the words he can't quite say. “Gods, I missed you so fucking much.”

“Watch your damn mouth, pup,” she tells him, but there isn’t an ounce of heat in the words. A laugh cracks out of Kiba's throat, and Tsume smooths his hair back with a hand that doesn’t shake even now. Shinobi hands—Kiba has them too, got them from her. Like everything else he’s proud of.

“What _happened_ to you, baby boy?” she murmurs, and Kiba _knows_ his mother isn’t soft, has never been gentle the way he’s seen civilian parents be, or even Sakura's. But this is all of her care, all of her kindness, and her children are the only ones who get it. And that makes it all the more special, doesn’t it?

“You're going to want a drink,” he tells her.

Tsume snorts. “Before or after I hear it?” she asks, and Kiba laughs roughly.

“Yeah,” he says wryly, and Tsume cuffs him lightly on the back of the head, then looks up.

“Hatake, scram,” she says pointedly.

Kiba had pretty much forgotten about Kakashi loitering behind him. He glances over his shoulder to find one grey eye fixed on him, a mild expression on the Copy-Nin’s face that is definitely a mask. No doubt Kakashi would have his Sharingan out if he thought he could do it subtly.

For a long, deliberate moment, Kakashi doesn’t move, just stares at them. Then, slowly, he tips his head, and says lightly, “Ah, sorry, I didn’t mean to intrude on a family reunion. I should be getting back to my genin.” He offers a lazy salute and then promptly vanishes in a whirl of leaves.

“Well,” Tsume says with amusement, eyeing the last of the leaves as they flutter down. “He’s going _straight_ to the Hokage or I'll eat my flak jacket.”

“Even Tsunade wouldn’t take that bet,” Kiba says automatically, because that’s what you _say_ when presented with a ridiculous bet. It makes Tsume blink and look down at him, surprise written clear across her face, and Kiba has to remind himself that Tsunade left during the Second War, that Tsume was still a new chuunin when she fled the village and Tsunade hasn’t been back since.

He winces a little, and Tsume huffs out something that could be a sigh or a laugh, then swings her arm over his shoulders, leans in, and grinds her knuckles against the top of his head. “You're going to tell me what the hell happened, pipsqueak, or so help me I’ll ground you until you're ready to be fitted for a coffin.”

“ _Mom_ ,” Kiba complains, stretching out the word just because he can. It’s hard to really mean it when she’s right _here_ , precisely the way Kiba never allowed himself to hope for.

“Don’t take that tone with me,” Tsume tells him, though she lets him wriggle away from her grip and retreat a few big steps towards the main house. As she turns to follow, her eyes land on Gaara, still perched on Akamaru's back and watching them warily, and she adds, with even more exasperation than before, “ _Kiba_.”

The sheer humiliation of the sex talk she must have _just_ given his younger self is all too clear, regardless of whether it’s been more than a decade for him. Kiba flushes crimson, even though he is _definitely_ not anything close to a virgin anymore, and protests, “He’s not _mine_! Well, he _is_ but not like _that_!”

There's a pause, startled and sharp, and then Tsume barks out a laugh. Practically cackling, she grabs Kiba again, reels him in until she can bump their foreheads together, and then lets him go. “Gods, you really are my son,” she says, close to gleeful, then immediately rounds on Akamaru, grabbing him and planting a loud kiss on his nose. “And _you_! What a handsome man you’ve grown into! Look at you! What the hell has my brat been feeding you? You're so big and strong now!”

“Hey!” Kiba complains, though he’s the furthest thing from meaning it. “I am too! And what, he gets a kiss but your own son doesn’t?”

Akamaru woofs happily and licks Tsume’s cheek, then grins at Kiba, practically radiating smugness.

With a chuff, Kuromaru pads away from Akamaru, throwing his weight against Kiba's hip and looking up at him with clear amusement. He adds a bit more pressure, and when Kiba doesn’t stagger the way he used to as a kid, the big dog makes a pleased sound. Kiba can't help but laugh a little, and even now he doesn’t have to bend practically at all to wrap his arms around Kuromaru’s neck.

“I missed you too, old man,” he tells Kuromaru, and Kuromaru noses at his face, licks his chin and headbutts him lightly.

“And you are?” Tsume asks, a smile in her voice. Kiba glances up to find her still crouched by Akamaru, his head resting on her shoulder as she looks up at Gaara. Gaara, for his part, looks like he doesn’t know whether to be defensive or startled, and he stares for a long moment, fingers tightening in Akamaru's fur.

“Hey, don’t worry about it,” Kiba says, because he knows his mother is terrifying. She’s made seasoned jounin wet their pants before; a jinchuuriki is probably only a short step up from there. “She looks like a wild animal but she won't bite, I promise. I'm still alive, see? If Mom was as scary as she looks I probably wouldn’t have survived my childhood.”

Tsume barks out a deeply amused laugh, pushing to her feet. “No matter how tall you get, I can see you're never going to outgrow being a brat,” she tells him, and Kiba pulls a face at her.

Expression shading towards confusion, Gaara looks between them. “She’s your…mother,” he says slowly.

Right. Because Gaara's experience with family is Rasa sending assassins to kill him, his uncle calling him a monster and trying to murder him, and his siblings being so scared of him they practically cower in his presence. Kiba winces inwardly, though he keeps his smile cheerful as he steps over to sling an arm around narrow shoulders.

“Yeah, she is,” he says lightly. “Don’t we look the same? I swear, if I hadn’t seen pictures of my father I’d think she just asexually reproduced to create me an’ Hana, we’re so alike.”

Tsume snorts, straightening. “Don’t lump Hana in with us. She got more of your father’s genes than mine.” Her eyes linger on Gaara for a moment, sharp and assessing, and then she steps back, turning away and waving a dismissive hand. “I don’t give a damn who you are, if my son thinks you're pack, you're pack. Come on, I get the feeling I'm going to want my liquor cabinet close at hand for this explanation.”

Kuromaru woofs a laugh, trotting to keep pace with her, and Kiba watches them vanish into them main house, leaving the door open. There are a few other clan members scattered around the courtyard, but they're just watching curiously, and Kiba can't blame them. This is probably the most interesting thing that’s happened in a while. Orochimaru’s invasion was really the start of everything snowballing; before that, Konoha was quiet and relatively peaceful.

Well. Kiba's going to see to it that _that_ bullshit doesn’t happen again, but he probably won't be able to prevent at least a little excitement, with what he’s going to have to tell the Hokage. Not _his_ Hokage—that’s Tsunade, and he wishes he had some way to convince her to come back now, but…that’s going to have to be in Orochimaru’s hands, a long game that Kiba doesn’t have any control over. It means he’s going to be dealing pretty much exclusively with the Sandaime, and that’s. Well. A mixed blessing. Sarutobi's pretty ruthless, caught at the right moment. Of course, he can be too soft, as well—that’s one of the reasons Kiba can't tell him the truth about everything. Danzō’s still got his ear, and if there's one thing Kiba can do to make Konoha as a whole better, it’s kill the bastard before he can get any more information to twist to his own ends.

Of course, that makes everything harder, not having the Hokage in the know, but it’s still workable. Kiba will just have to be persuasive.

(Sasuke had laughed at him, when he said that. It was a rare thing, then, and Kiba hadn’t even been able to get offended, though he’d rolled over in bed and pretended to be huffy about it. Had slapped at bare skin as Sasuke chuckled, curled in on himself a little as if to keep the sound private, his hand in front of his mouth to hide his smile. Like it would be taken away, this one bit of humor, if he showed it, and the thought was a grim, sad one, especially in light of the world ending.

Kiba's not going to let it get that bad again. Sasuke asked him to make things better, and he’s sure as hell going to try his best to see it through.)

“You're…happy to be home?” Gaara asks quietly, eyes intent on Kiba. The soft words jar Kiba out of his thoughts, out of that memory of a dark room where he and Sasuke could pretend everything was going to be all right. And—maybe it will be, now. Just…not for them.

“Yeah,” he says, and it comes out rough, almost strangled. He clears his throat, tries again, because that’s what he always does. Adds a smile, this time, and means it, even if it’s hard to get off the ground. “Yeah, I am. I really, really am. You can't always pick your family, but sometimes you get lucky. I definitely did.”

Gaara stares for another moment, then turns away, expression going even blanker than before. It makes Kiba want to sigh, but he doesn’t let himself, just drops a hand on Gaara's knee and squeezes lightly. “Sometimes, if you're not lucky with the family you're born into, you can be with the family you pick,” he points out. “Me an’ Akamaru, we’re decent family, right? And we’ll be right here if you ever want to pick us.”

Stiffening slightly, Gaara keeps his face turned away, but there's a faint flush on pale cheeks, and when he ducks his head Kiba can see the same has spread up to his ears as well. It’s _adorable_ , he thinks, and chuckles. “Come on,” he says lightly. “Mom’s probably halfway through her first bottle already.”

Gaara slides off Akamaru's back, then follows closely as they head up the steps and across the porch. Kiba leaves the door open as well—it’s habit, since the dogs can open and close doors if they need to but would prefer not to have to. Besides, it’s not like anyone is going to rob a shinobi clan, and even if they _were_ , it wouldn’t be the Inuzuka. No valuable bloodlines here, and no way for an enemy clan to use their jutsus without also stealing a nin-dog, and that would just be suicide. The Inuzuka would happily start a war over their partners, and everyone knows it.

The house is exactly as Kiba remembers, even nearly three years later—or twelve, depending on how he’s counting. A little smaller, maybe, but he knows he has a child’s view of it. There are still all the old paintings on the walls, though, remnants of the father Kiba only vaguely remembers, and it smells like _home_ , like dry fur and forest and pack. There's none of the choking rock-dust and coppery blood he smelled last time, digging through the ruins, and he’s beyond thankful for it.

Tsume is in the kitchen, like Kiba expected her to be. Immediately, Akamaru abandons the conversation to go and flop down next to Kuromaru on one of the many dog beds along the far wall, and Kuromaru allows it with a benign tolerance he never used to show. His mom’s not the only one feeling nice, Kiba thinks with amusement, and takes a seat at the table, watching Tsume pull two cups down from the cupboard.

“Want some?” she asks, waving the sake bottle at Gaara, who gives her a faintly bewildered look. “Oh, pipe down, you're a genin so you're an adult in shinobi eyes. Drinking sake’s hardly worse than being paid to murder someone.”

Kiba snickers, remembering Sakura's face the first time he and Hinata tried to pull her into a bar after a mission. Both of her parents are civilian-born, even if they became shinobi themselves, and some mindsets carried over to their daughter. It’s amusing to see the same in the child of the Kazekage, though Kiba supposes it’s a lot like how Gaara never got to play ninja tag. Rasa's parenting was pretty much a dumpster fire billowing toxic smoke; normal shinobi behavior is hardly Gaara's default. Well, beyond the murder part.

“No, thank you,” Gaara says, politely but firmly. He looks from Kiba to Tsume and back again, hesitating, and then over at the dogs.

Kiba chuckles a little, because that’s a familiar expression. When he was a genin, he spent a hell of a lot more time playing with the nin-ken than he did sitting around and listening to the adults talk. “Go ahead,” he tells Gaara, reaching out to scrub a hand through short red hair. “They’d probably appreciate the company. There should be some brushes on the shelf, if you want to groom Akamaru for me.”

Gaara ducks his head again, but doesn’t hesitate to slip across the kitchen and get the brushes, then sit down next to the dog beds, his legs crossed under him. Always happy to be pampered, Akamaru immediately rolls onto his side and drops his head in Gaara's lap, and Gaara smiles faintly, stroking his ears.

“Cute kid,” Tsume says quietly, though her eyes are sharp as she turns them back to Kiba. One brow rises pointedly, and she fills the cups, then pushes one across the table. “So you smell like my son, you act like my son, you _are_ my son. I can get that. Everything except the fact that you're, what, twenty-five?”

“Twenty-four,” Kiba corrects, and takes the cup. He tosses it back, not bothering to savor it the way he might with something better—he knows his mother and exactly what brand of rotgut she drinks when she’s bracing herself for bad news. Setting it down, he glances up to hold her gaze, and grins. “Time-travel’s a thing that’s possible, apparently, when you’ve got a kunoichi stronger than Tsunade and an Uzumaki jinchuuriki.”

Tsume huffs a rough laugh, downs her own sake, and pours them more. “There's still a you from this time, right?” she asks, and something flickers across her face. “I didn’t lose my chance to watch you fail at growing up, did I?”

Kiba rolls his eyes. “If I failed at growing up it’s only because I had a shitty role model,” he retorts, and doesn’t dodge the cuff to the ear she gives him for that, because he’ll never admit it but he kind of missed even that. “Ow! Quit it, there's still a bratty version of me running around for you to take your anger out on.”

“If I ever took my anger out on you, you’d know it, pup,” Tsume retorts, though she’s grinning, a thread of relief behind the humor. “All right, so I take it there was a reason you decided to do this and it wasn’t just a joyride through time. You need help?”

So simple. Kiba closes his eyes for a second, just…savoring it. This is what having a clan feels like. Kiba had one before, even after the quake, but it hadn’t been the same. They’d lost the line of succession, and even though the Inuzuka are matriarchal and have been for as long as they’ve kept written records, Kiba got stuck with most of the duties of Clan Head without the title to go along with it. It had meant everyone turned to him for answers, and Kiba hadn’t been able to let that go for long enough to ask for help from his clan. Only from Sasuke, near the end, and that was something entirely different.

“Yeah,” he says, raspy and rough. “Yeah, I—the world went to shit, and I need to stop it from happening again. Help would be—great.”

Something in the line of his mother’s mouth softens, eases. She reaches over the table to cuff him again, more gently this time. “Idiot, don’t look so surprised. You're my son. Like hell I’d leave you to do this alone.”

Kiba is _not_ going to cry. He’s an elite jounin, an adult, a nominal Clan Head and the one Tsunade picked to save the entire damn world. Tearing up over a declaration like that is just dumb.

There's a sigh, the scrape of a chair. A moment later Tsume wraps a hand around the back of his head and tugs him sideways to lean against her chest. Kiba turns his head, burying his face in the soft fabric of her shirt, and makes himself breathe evenly as she strokes his hair.

“You're my son,” she repeats, and it’s not quite gentle, but it’s firm, and that’s what Kiba needs. “The clan will stand behind you. Hell, saving the world’s a pretty big job. It’s an honor that someone left it to an Inuzuka.”

Kiba laughs a little, because he was so utterly bewildered when Naruto, Sakura, and Sasuke first dragged him into the plan. Bewildered and then astonished, because Kiba has never really stood out and he’s fully aware of it. The Inuzuka are a big clan, and Kiba's the Clan Head’s son but he’s just another member, really. Just another jounin, and even when the world was tearing itself apart there were plenty of those.

 _You're steady_ , Sakura had told him, her smile strained around the edges. _You’ve been involved in enough of the big events that you know what happens, and you know the details of what you didn’t see. And…_

 _You can fix things,_ Sasuke had added, and he’d held Kiba's eyes without wavering. _Help people see that things aren’t hopeless_.

He’d meant his younger self, Kiba knows. Sasuke always did blame himself for a hell of a lot of the things that went wrong. And maybe he was one of the catalysts, but he was never the _cause_. Kiba had tried to convince him of that more than once, but this ended up being his solution, rather than letting the guilt go. Sasuke was gorgeous and strong and brilliant, but emotional stability was never part of the package.

 _I just want you out of my hair, dog-breath_ , Naruto had told him, grinning, and it was bright and warm and hopeful even when he was wan and fading. _You keep saying you're going to be Hokage and it’s pissing me off, believe it._

It had been years, at that point, since Kiba had so much as thought of the Hokage's hat as something he wanted, but he’d gone along with it, grinning back. _You're just scared of the competition, loser. Fine. I’ll go back and see if I can't get the hat before you even_ think _about wanting it._

A lie, but it had made Naruto laugh, and that was the whole point of it.

“Kiba?” his mother asks, tugging lightly on his hair.

Kiba takes a breath that he doesn’t allow to shake and finally lifts his head. “The clan’s going to have to lie,” he points out. “If everyone else knows I'm from the future, they’re going to change their plans before I can stop them.”

Tsume pauses, looking him over for a moment, and then laughs. “I might have an idea about that,” she says, grinning fiercely.

Kiba grins right back, all teeth. “Yeah,” he says, because he knows _exactly_ what she’s thinking. “I thought it was pretty clever, too.”

She tweaks his nose, lightly enough that it’s only vaguely a reprimand for the smugness. “All right, pipsqueak. Time to prove that the Inuzuka are the best clan in Konoha. None of that Hyuuga Clan bullshit. We’ll save the world and then rub it in their faces.”

Kiba _adores_ his mother, even if he’ll never tell her that straight out. Instead, he leans into her side, feels her sling an arm around his shoulders and lightly rub her knuckles against the top of his head.

It’s so fucking nice to finally be home.

 

 

Kakashi isn’t entirely sure what he expected, but it wasn’t _this_.

“Your son,” Sarutobi repeats slowly, staring at the woman standing planted in front of his desk. His pipe is forgotten in his hand, and his eyebrows are almost touching his hairline.

“Yeah,” Tsume says breezily, hooking a thumb at the man next to her. Kiba looks entirely at ease, standing with his hands in the pockets of his jacket. His nin-dog is nowhere in sight, though neither is Gaara, so Kakashi assumes they're together. “This is Kiba. I thought he was dead, but I guess he’s not.”

Kiba beams, all but bouncing on the balls of his feet. “I've been traveling,” he declares, like this isn’t some ridiculous plot straight out of an Icha Icha novel. “Picked up some info I thought Konoha should have immediately, so I came back.”

The Hokage looks entirely disbelieving. “You would have had to have had him at…” he trails off, clearly trying to do the math.

“Fifteen,” Tsume says proudly, reaching out to ruffle Kiba's hair. He bears it with good grace, though he rolls his eyes a little. “He’s a battlefield baby, what can I say? All that stress relief caught up with me.”

“ _Mom_ ,” Kiba protests, sounding appropriately horrified for a son hearing about his mother’s love life.

Tsume cackles, unrepentant. “You should count your blessings you're not the Yondaime’s kid,” she teases. “That one time with him and Kushina—”

Kakashi blanches just as much as Kiba does, and very desperately tries to scrub the image of his teacher and surrogate big sister tangled up with _Inuzuka Tsume_ out of his brain. It takes effort not to leap down from his hiding spot in the rafters and beg her to stop talking, though knowing Tsume she’d just gleefully provide more details. He really, really didn’t need to know that about Minato's sexual history.

There's a pause, and then Sarutobi sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose. “And you named him Kiba,” he says wearily, though less like he’s looking for holes in the story and more like he can't believe this is actually his life.

An offended expression crosses Tsume’s face. “Kiba's a good, strong Inuzuka name!” she protests. “My uncle was named Kiba.”

“You named _both_ of your sons Kiba,” Sarutobi reiterates, sounding strained.

“I like the name, so what,” Tsume says lazily, still grinning broadly. “’Sides, I thought Kiba'd wandered away and gotten killed when I was out on a training trip. No way a ten-year-old could survive on his own, I thought. It was devastating.”

She doesn’t exactly look devastated, Kakashi thinks cynically, though with Tsume it’s always a little hard to tell. At least Sarutobi seems to share his opinion; he stares at her for a long minute, then sighs like he regrets getting up this morning and asks wearily, “So how _did_ he survive, then?”

“Wolves,” Kiba says brightly, and there are a hell of a lot of teeth in that grin. “They took care of me until I was old enough to do it myself. I knew most of the clan techniques already, and I had all those survival classes from the Academy, so I was fine.”

It would explain everything, Kakashi thinks, and doesn’t know whether he likes it or not. He’s a bit younger than Kotetsu and Izumo and probably wasn’t in their class, which could be why they don’t remember him, and disappearing before his graduation would explain the lack of hitai-ate and the long time away. The explanation is a little _too_ neat, though, and Kakashi’s always been suspicious of such things.

Of course, it’s possible it’s the truth. Acceptance has never been Kakashi’s default setting, though.

For a long minute, Sarutobi stares at the two Inuzuka, clearly weighing whether or not he should call bullshit. “I’ll pull the Academy records,” he says, almost a warning.

“Sure,” Tsume says easily, and Kakashi can't tell if she’s smiling or baring her teeth. “The medic who delivered him died before she could file the records, but all his Academy paperwork should be in order.”

It’s not that unusual a story, honestly. Battlefield babies make up a large chunk of that particular age group, and Kakashi’s always known it. Being faced with that fact like this, though, seems entirely too suspicious.

Sarutobi nods, accepting Tsume’s words, and then glances at Kiba. “You have information?” he asks.

For the first time, Kiba loses his easy smile. His expression slides into something close to a grimace and he pulls his hands out of his pockets.

“Yeah,” he says, and it’s on the edge of grim. “You're _really_ not going to like it, though.”


	4. Chapter 4

Sarutobi freezes, some sixth sense Kakashi apparently lacks picking up on an undercurrent in Kiba's words. He flicks a glance at the door, then shapes a swift hand sign. Chakra flares, sweeping out around them to crash into seals on the walls and spread, and in moments the office is tightly contained within a barrier. Nothing will get in or out, and it’s a technique Kakashi has only seen the Hokage use a handful of times outside of the war.

He wonders what he’s failing to see from his angle that’s made Sarutobi willing to go so far. Some expression on Kiba's face, or in his eyes, maybe. Kakashi’s perch is too high to see it well, though he can make out the broad strokes. He almost wants to tilt his hitai-ate up, look with his Sharingan, but that much movement, that much chakra spiking—it will absolutely give him away to someone as skilled as Tsume. And likely to Kiba as well, if he’s strong enough to survive on his own from the age of ten on.

As he watches, the set of Kiba's shoulders eases a little, as if he weren’t expecting to be taken seriously. Dragging a hand over his messily slicked-back hair, he lets out a breath, and then says, “It’s about the bijuu. And why Mito made the wrong choice when she sealed the Kyuubi.”

Kakashi goes very, very still, eye narrowing. Out of all the things Kiba could have said—Iwa mobilizing, Kumo plotting, Orochimaru gathering forces, missing-nin banding together—that’s just about the last he could have expected.

Sarutobi's expression doesn’t shift, though. He taps his pipe against the desk, letting the embers flare again, and takes a long breath before he inclines his head to Kiba. “Not many people discuss the bijuu,” he points out. “Or even the jinchuuriki.”

Kiba's mouth pulls in an expression of disgust. “Yeah,” he says, on the edge of sharp. “I've noticed. But, uh. Let’s just say you're not the first god of shinobi I've met and leave it at that.”

Sarutobi drops the pipe.

A little confused—because history has never been something Kakashi really paid attention to, outside of what he’s lived through himself—Kakashi squints down at the Hokage as he stamps out burning tobacco, trying to remember who else has carried the title. Hashirama, but unless Kiba can talk to ghosts that’s not overly likely. He keeps himself current on the Bingo Book, and he definitely hasn’t come across anyone arrogant enough to adopt that title within its pages.

Tsume lets out a barking laugh, rocking back on her heels and folding her arms across her chest. “I thought you were going to break it to the old man gently,” she tells her son. “If I didn’t know better, pup, I’d think you were trying to give him a heart attack.”

“Good thing you know better, then, isn’t it?” Kiba retorts, but he crouches down to pick up Sarutobi's pipe, then dusts it off and offers it to the Hokage with a faintly sheepish smile. “Sorry, sir.”

With an expression that can't decide whether it’s longsuffering or bewildered, Sarutobi takes it from him and carefully sets it aside. “The god of shinobi,” he repeats, holding Kiba's eyes. “You met him. How?”

A flicker of unease crosses Kiba's face, but he doesn’t hesitate. “You know Akatsuki wants to kidnap the jinchuuriki? Pull the bijuu out and use them?”

Judging by Sarutobi's expression, he had no idea, but he nods nevertheless. Kiba apparently accepts this without pause, and forges on, “I met one of them. The jinchuuriki, I mean. They were friends with their bijuu, worked together, all that shit.”

Sarutobi has the world’s best poker face, but at this moment Kakashi is very glad he’s out of sight. Friends? With a _bijuu_? That’s like ant making friends with a boot. Kushina certainly never managed it, and Kakashi is fairly certain that she would have tried if it were a possibility.

Then again, Kushina definitely never _wanted_ to be a jinchuuriki, but she was raised for it. There was never a chance for her to refuse, and her teachers in Uzushiogakure and then Mito herself would have emphasized the Kyuubi's danger and status as an enemy that had to be contained. And, of course, the Kyuubi is a creature of hatred and destruction; Kakashi can't think of anyone in the world who would be stupid and reckless enough to try making friends with _that_.

Clearing his throat, Sarutobi folds his hands in front of him on the desk, and Kakashi knows him well enough to see that he’s trying to look entirely untouched by all of these revelations. “I had heard Kumo’s jinchuuriki were able to work cooperatively with their bijuu,” he says. “This was similar?”

Kiba shrugs. “Yeah, but none of that ‘you're my tool’ shit A is so fond of. They were friends. But the jinchuuriki started getting sick. Really sick. We couldn’t figure out what was going on for a while, but—” He grimaces a little, and for a moment there's a level of grief on his face that makes Kakashi think of the Memorial again, his own trips to talk to ghosts and dead friends. He’s not the only one who sees it, either; Tsume’s expression flickers with something that on other people probably looks like concern, and she leans over and elbows her son lightly. Kakashi’s seen his ninken do the same thing, when one of them is hurt, and for a moment sympathy and humor twist in his chest.

Sarutobi's sharp eyes catch it just like Kakashi does, and he softens just a little, giving Kiba a moment before he prompts gently, “But?”

Kiba flashes him a smile that’s eighty percent teeth. “But the bijuu are forces of nature. They're pure chakra. Lock them away inside human chakra coils and all that power is just gone. Humans can't use enough chakra in a _lifetime_ as a tailed beast uses just to exist. And with all of that power ripped out of the natural world, when the world’s had thousands of years to adjust to it, things go bad. _Really_ bad. Not just for the jinchuuriki, but for the rest of the world, too.”

There's a long moment of silence as Sarutobi turns that over, frowning faintly. “The world exists in a balance of natural chakra. Whatever is taken out renews itself. That’s the way of things,” he says, not quite an objection, but likely close.

With a frustrated huff, Kiba scrubs a hand through his hair, sending it falling around his face. “It’s—it’s like a river,” he says, sketching it out in the air with his fingers. “Natural chakra just—flowing. It carves out a riverbed, right? And then the bijuu show up, like new creeks joining the river to make it wider and deeper, and that riverbed adjusts. There's a new average for the river. For the world. A new natural chakra baseline. But…”

He drops his hands, grimacing. “Mito was the first jinchuuriki. She turned Kur—the Kyuubi into pure chakra and then sealed him, and his power vanished. Like damming a stream, so it can't reach the river anymore. And maybe that would have been fine, eventually, except it wasn’t _just_ the Kyuubi. Hashirama showed all the other nations how to seal bijuu, and they vanished. Complete drought. The river ended up almost empty, without anything to make up for the lack except a few small bursts of chakra, like when the Kyuubi escaped.”

Sarutobi curls his hands together more tightly, breathes out. “Droughts can have far-reaching consequences beyond the lack of water,” he says. “I assume this is where your metaphor leads?”

Shrugging, Kiba rocks back on his heels. “Pretty much, yeah,” he agrees. “From what I was told, it’ll be messy when the system finally snaps. Natural chakra out of whack means hurricanes, earthquakes, volcanoes, that kind of shit. It’s not—there isn’t a fix beyond letting the bijuu out. Might sound like a bad idea, but the jinchuuriki are going to be in a bad way, too, if the nature chakra goes completely nuts. They’ll die, and the bijuu will disperse, but it won't be in time to fix anything.”

There's absolute silence for a long minute. Kakashi leans forward just a little, trying to get a better look at faces, and…Kiba looks grim and sad. Resigned. Like this is something that’s already happened, and it makes Kakashi wonder about this jinchuuriki he claims to have met. If the jinchuuriki was the first victim of all this, that would explain it, and Kiba's insistence on bringing the news to Konoha when it’s an unbelievable story at best.

At length, Sarutobi blows out a long breath, sinking back in his chair a little. “That is…going to require much contemplation,” he says finally, and Kakashi’s known him long enough to recognize a _nice try, interesting story, but if I were an ounce less polite I’d tell you just how full of shit you are_. After all, Kakashi’s usually the one to inspire that undertone, but this seems a lot bigger than a simple excuse for lateness.

Whether he hears it or not, Kiba's smile doesn’t waver as it slides back onto his face. “Yeah, it’s a good bite to chew on,” he agrees, more or less cheerfully. Turning, he glances over at Tsume with a grin, and asks, “Are you happy enough to see your son that you’ll buy me dinner?”

Tsume snorts, but she slings an arm around his neck and pulls him into an affectionate headlock. “Nice try, pipsqueak. How about you buy your old mother dinner instead? I've got a craving for barbeque.”

“You eat like a _horse_ ,” Kiba complains, but he lets her half-drag him out of the office without waiting for the Hokage's dismissal. “I'm gonna go _broke_ if I have to feed you and Akamaru both.”

“And how do you think I felt feeding you as a kid? And Hana? _And_ the brat. I'm lucky you didn’t chew holes in my walls.”

“We probably wouldn’t have noticed any difference between that and your cooking. The wall might have had more flavor—ow!”

“Stop complaining and take me to dinner. That’s the least you owe me after all the stress today.”

The door falls shut on their bickering, and Kakashi doesn’t wait more than a handful of seconds before he drops down from the rafters, landing lightly in front of the Hokage's desk. Sarutobi is still staring after the Inuzuka, expression pained.

“Of course she gave the dog the same name,” he mutters, rubbing his hands over his face. “The girl is lucky she didn’t end up a Kiba as well.”

It’s an amusing thought, but it’s not the most pressing issue on Kakashi’s mind right now. He hesitates, looking at Sarutobi, and thinks of Naruto, the only concrete piece of his past that he has left. If anything Kiba said is right, the jinchuuriki could be in danger, and more than anything else in the world, Kakashi doesn’t want to see another person who matters to him die.

“Sir?” he asks quietly.

For a long moment, Sarutobi doesn’t answer. Then, with a sigh, he taps his pipe on the edge of the desk and says, “Do you know who the first God of Shinobi was, Kakashi? The Sage of Six Paths. I find myself reluctant to believe that the Sage himself came to warn a runaway Inuzuka boy about impending disasters.” With a quiet sound of disbelief, he shakes his head, settling back in his chair. “I cannot even _image_ what the reaction would be, even if I did believe it,” he says, mostly to himself. “Tell the other nations to surrender their jinchuuriki, the power balance between our countries, just so that we can set the bijuu free? I would be laughed out of the Summit.”

Kakashi thinks of Kumo and A, their fierce grab for any kind of power, and winces. Even if by some miracle all of the Kage agreed, A would turn all of his resources to making more jinchuuriki, and this time there wouldn’t be any forces to balance him.

“You think it’s all lies?” he asks.

Sarutobi inclines his head. “It’s too fantastical,” he says wearily. “Too hard to believe. The world has been without the bijuu for this long already. The shifts Kiba anticipated—they would be far more obvious by now if it was true.”

There isn’t really a reason to swing to one side or the other, but…

Kiba lost someone. Kakashi knows that, knows the look on his face intimately and uncomfortably. Maybe it was the jinchuuriki friend, or maybe it wasn’t, but the loss is certainly real.

He thinks about Kiba baring his throat, about the scars, about the way he played tag with Kakashi’s genin and hugged his mother and talked about finally being home. And—Kakashi has never been one to doubt the Hokage, or disobey orders, but…Sarutobi doesn’t have the time to look into Kiba personally, or his story in general. He’s likely correct, because he’s had far more experience making judgement calls like this than Kakashi hopefully ever will, but Kakashi can at least keep a wary eye on anything Kiba might be doing as he wanders around the village. Whatever Kakashi finds, he’ll bring it to the Hokage.

A simple plan, but it’s enough to satisfy Kakashi.

“Do you want me to get Iruka to pull his Academy records?” he asks mildly.

Sarutobi scoffs under his breath, shoving his pipe into the corner of his mouth. “Like those would be proof, ha,” he mutters sourly, glaring at the spot where Tsume was standing. “Do you even _know_ how many Inuzuka work at the Academy? Any one of them could have slipped those papers into the filing system.”

Kakashi blinks once, long and slow. “Do you think that’s a lie, too?” he asks, a little warily.

If anything, Sarutobi's expression gets even sourer. “No,” he says precisely. “I fully believe that Inuzuka Tsume is entirely capable of having a child, losing it in the wilderness, and then giving her third child the same name. The boy would have been raised by wolves whether he was in Konoha or not.”

Kakashi hides his amusement behind the cover of his Icha Icha, very careful not to let the Hokage see. Out of all the big clans in Konoha, the Inuzuka are probably one of the more stable, but they're also rowdy and down to fight and prone to entertaining themselves in the most ridiculous ways. The number of headaches they've given Sarutobi over the years is likely massive.

“All right,” he agrees, keeping his tone light but not too light. “If that’s everything, sir?”

Sarutobi ways him away, darkly pensive, and Kakashi bows and goes, slipping out through the window instead of taking the stairs down. As he lands on the street, he glances up at the sky, and can't fight a faint frown.

Enemies Kakashi can fight. Invasions he can survive. Wars he can endure. But the world itself tearing apart because half of its natural chakra has suddenly vanished? That’s something else entirely.

_Natural chakra out of whack means hurricanes, earthquakes, volcanoes, that kind of shit. It’s not—there isn’t a fix beyond letting the bijuu out._

Kakashi remembers the Kyuubi, massive and furious and deadly. He hadn’t been allowed to face it, held back by Kurenai’s father with the other young jounin, but the memory is too vast and blood-stained to ever fully fade. And that was just _one_ bijuu. One out of nine, and maybe the Kyuubi is the strongest, the most fearsome, but even the Ichibi is capable of leveling armies and destroying whole villages in a moment. Letting them out of their human containers seems like the very worst idea Kakashi has ever heard.

Then again, letting the world tear itself apart doesn’t sound all that smart, either.

That is, Kakashi supposes, the biggest problem. Kiba's explanation made sense. Kakashi isn’t a sage, isn’t anywhere close, but natural chakra isn’t all that mysterious. Jinchuuriki aren’t all that mysterious, even; he knew Kushina personally, and there was that Kiri nin during Kakashi’s Chuunin Exams who Minato said likely was one as well. It doesn’t seem beyond the confines of reason, to think that locking that much chakra away from the world inside human chakra coils might have a negative effect on things.

Blowing out a short breath, Kakashi flips his book open again, bringing it up in front of his face, but he can't quite focus on the familiar words. It’s…confusing. Unsettling. He can understand why the Hokage doesn’t believe Kiba's story, and he isn’t entirely certain he does, either. But—there's reasonable doubt, isn’t there? Just a little. Just enough.

Naruto has already suffered enough because of the Kyuubi. If it’s going to end up killing him, Kakashi isn’t sure what he can do, but there has to be _something_.

 

 

“Stuffy old man,” Tsume mutters as they head away from the Administration Building. “When have any of us wasted his time with something like this? No benefit of the doubt? I bet he’d pay attention if it as a _Hyuuga_ telling him.”

You’d never know listening to her, Kiba reflects, hiding a grin, that she and Hiashi are close friends and former genin teammates. They butt heads as often as Sasuke and Naruto, with the added edge of their entire clan getting in on the action as well.

“It’ll be okay,” he says, and maybe it’s a _disappointment_ that Sarutobi didn’t roll with the revelation, but it’s not the end of the world. Kiba knows all too well what that feels like, and this definitely isn’t it. There are still options here. It’ll just be slightly more inconvenient to have to go behind the Hokage's back instead of just doing all of this upfront. “I've got at least three backups. And besides, if Sarutobi doesn’t wanna listen, we can replace him with someone who does.”

Tsume eyes him for a long moment, then huffs. “My baby boy being able to plan his way out of a wet paper bag,” she says, mockingly proud. “This is a happy day.”

“I've _always_ been good at planning!” Kiba squawks, offended. “And _if_ I wasn’t, it would be because you're a crap teacher!”

Without a second’s hesitation, Tsume snaps a hand out to cuff him in the side of the head. “Pipe down, brat, and learn to take a compliment,” she orders, then grabs his elbow and tugs him off the main street, down a familiar side alley.

“The _bar_?” Kiba groans. “I thought you wanted _food_.”

Tsume rolls her eyes. “We’re going _past_ the bar,” she retorts. “Gaku usually hits the Yakiniku Q for lunch.”

At this point, Kiba should probably be used to his mother surprising him, but it’s still startling no matter how many times she makes a logical leap three steps before Kiba even starts to consider it. “Gaku,” he repeats. “’War stories about the Yondaime’ Gaku? ‘The lifeblood of every ninja village is gossip’ Gaku? ‘I know as many secrets as the Hokage’ Gaku?”

“Show some respect for your elders, pup,” Tsume scolds, cuffing him in the head again. “Gaku’s twice the age most shinobi manage, and he’s not some crazy old man telling stories in the corner. He’s _clan_.”

“I know that!” Kiba protests, but he doesn’t hesitate to follow her into the restaurant. “He always scared the shit out of me, though.”

Tsume casts him a sharp look, but there's something like amusement in her face. “Not past tense any more, so get it right. And if we’re going to spread some rumors, we need someone who knows what they’re doing.”

Kiba was just going to henge and tell someone in the market, but this is definitely a more refined approach, so he follows agreeably as his mother stalks straight back towards one of the green-striped booths in the back. The one deepest in the corner, set at odd angles to all of the windows, is already occupied by a tall, heavyset man, his hair and neat beard gone entirely white. No flak jacket, not anymore, but his eyes are still sharp as he glances up at Tsume, and he doesn’t waver as he climbs slowly to his feet.

“Tsume,” he says, dipping his head, and his gaze slides past her to lock onto Kiba, brows rising. “And…?”

Tsume grins, dropping to sprawl lazily on the open bench. “You’ve met Kiba,” she says, takes a glance around them to check that no one is close enough to listen in, and then adds with a toothy grin, “He’s usually a bit shorter, though.”

Shock flickers across Gaku’s face, quickly followed by assessment and then calculation. He takes a visible breath, scenting the air, and eases back into his seat without taking his eyes off of Kiba. “Shorter,” the old man says a little incredulously, and barks out a laugh. “Yeah, that’s for sure. You look just like your mom.”

Kiba grins, because that’s always going to be a compliment. His mom is _gorgeous_ , and fuck anyone who can't appreciate it. “Well, the only other option was looking like my dad, and I was probably better off without those genes.”

Gaku snorts, even as Tsume rolls her eyes. The fact that she married a man she managed to run off in less than a decade is something the clan as a whole is never going to forget. Or, more accurately, never going to let _her_ forget, and it carried on even after she was dead. When Akita found out that Kiba and Sasuke had tripped into bed, she gave him grief for _days_ about having his mom’s weakness for pretty faces with terrible personalities behind them.

Sasuke had laughed at him for way too long when he heard that, the bastard.

“Is this a permanent thing?” Gaku asks, looking Kiba over closely. “Or are you just visiting for the day?”

“Permanent,” Kiba assures him, and tries hard not to think about what would be waiting for him back in his future. Nothing pretty, if Konoha was even still there at all. most of it hadn’t been, when he left. And then, with the thought of Naruto so close and the realization that Gaku’s war stories were always about _Naruto's dad_ , not just the Yondaime, he waves a hand to show the seals around his wrist, just visible under the bracers, and says in explanation, “Uzumaki crap. ‘S useful as _fuck_.”

Gaku looks at the seals, at his face, and then leans back in his seat with a snort. “An Uzumaki jinchuuriki,” he corrects, though he says it like it’s a test, watching Kiba's face closely. “Scariest thing I've ever seen, that’s for damn sure.”

“Yeah,” Kiba agrees, and tries to keep the note of wistfulness out of it. There's no time to dwell on the future he’s trying to change, though; Naruto is here, he’s fine, he’s not wasting away as his chakra turns against him. Kiba still has more than enough time to fix everything. “He tossed me back here for a reason, though. There's some stuff I need to fix. Up for it?”

Blinking, Gaku looks from Kiba to Tsume, who’s pretending to concentrate on the menu and ignore their conversation. A moment of hesitation, and then he glances back at Kiba, lifting a brow. “I'm an old man. Isn’t this sort of thing best left to your generations?”

“Nah.” Kiba grins at him, all teeth and anticipation. “What I need it to knock a few rotten apples off the tree, make room for some new growth. Maybe get some justice while we’re at it.”

Gaku’s been a shinobi more than long enough to get what Kiba is thinking. He grins back, thin and threatening, and says, “You want to start a whisper campaign.”

Tsume barks out a laugh, letting her attention slip back to them. “Fancy name for a bunch of rumors.”

Thankfully, there's no trace of offence in Gaku’s face, just patient humor as he leans back, tapping his fingers lightly against the tabletop. “Rumors have probably killed more people than poisons,” he tells her, with the air of an old argument. “So, pup, who are you looking to bring down here?”

This is the risky part. Kiba does another check around them, but the waitress is occupied and there's no one close enough to listen in. Even so, he lowers his voice, leans forward to brace his elbows against the table. “Shimura Danzō, for orchestrating the Uchiha Massacre. And Sarutobi Hiruzen, for covering it up.”

Gaku’s breath catches in his chest, and he goes perfectly, utterly still.

Kiba bares his teeth. It’s not a smile. “I've got proof. And I’ve got more, too. He’s still operating Root. He tried to have the Hokage assassinated, and he was part of Orochimaru’s experiments, and was the one to start the rumors that turned the village against the Uchiha—”

Gaku cuts him off with a raised hand. “Easy there. One’s enough to start with. The rest we can bring in if we have to, but too many will make things bog down. You got details?”

“All of ‘em,” Kiba tells him grimly. Sasuke had hated telling him, but the only thing he’d hated more was Danzō getting away with covering up the massacre a second time. That promise to make things better, though—this is _abso-fucking-lutely_ included. “What do you need?”

Taking a breath, Gaku spreads a hand out on the tabletop, frowning down at it. Then, in a quick motion, he waves over the waitress and tells Kiba, “Food. And a hell of a lot more sake.”

That, at least, makes Tsume snort, though she definitely doesn’t protest. “Priorities,” she agrees. “Kiba, that kid of yours—”

“He’s not _mine_ , quite phrasing it like that or people are going to get the wrong idea!”

“ _That kid of yours_ , is he going to be fine with Akamaru?”

“Yeah,” Kiba admits, only a little grudgingly. “I gave him a book on trees and it blew his mind. He’s camped out in the guestroom with Akamaru, they're fine.”

Apparently satisfied, Tsume nods and waves them on, picking up a menu and going to intercept the waitress. “Start talking, then. I’ll order.”

“Don’t get anything nasty!” Kiba calls after her, gets a mocking grin in answer, and groans.

Gaku chuckles quietly, and his prosthetic leg lightly thumps Kiba's ankle under the table. “Bad?” he asks, and there's humor on his face but his eyes are serious as he catches Kiba's.

Kiba meets and holds his eyes, letting Gaku read the answer on his face. “Pretty bad,” he confirms, tries to keep it light and knows he doesn’t manage it.

It’s still enough, though. Gaku doesn’t ask more, just inclines his head and says, “Start at the beginning.”


	5. Chapter 5

“To Tsume?” Ino asks with interest, taking the scroll.

Shikaku nods, looking somewhere between exasperated and exhausted—it’s a look Ino has seen on him before. “Just paperwork,” he says, and gives Ino a look that means the words are a warning not to snoop. She smiles back, perfectly innocent, and he sighs. “Don’t. Don’t try the face. It didn’t work for your father when we were genin, either.”

“That’s not what _I_ remember,” Inoichi says mildly, though he doesn’t look up from the bouquet he’s arranging. “In fact—”

“No story time,” Shikaku tells him firmly, just a little louder than is precisely necessary. He glances back at Ino, then sighs. “I’d ask Shikamaru but it would take four times longer to haul him off the couch than it did to walk over here. Hand it to Tsume and come back, that’s all you need to do.”

Ino rolls her eyes. “I’ve done courier missions before,” she reminds him, but takes the sealing scroll. “All the way to Taki and back.”

“The most blissful week of my life,” Inoichi puts in. “The house was _quiet_.”

“You cried when I got back,” Ino reminds him, and Shikaku snorts.

“ _And_ I hauled you back from the bar the first night,” he adds. Inoichi ignores them grandly, and Shikaku rolls his eyes again, glancing back at Ino. “Tsume _only_ ,” he says again.

“I'm not going to pawn it off on the first person I see. I'm not _Shikamaru_.” Ino tucks it under her arm, then gives him her sunniest smile. “D-rank rates, right? Since it’s a mission and all.”

“Inoichi, your daughter is conning me for money,” Shikaku complains, but he fishes a handful of ryō out of his pocket and drops it on the table.

“My daughter is honing her skills in order to survive in the cutthroat mercenary world we live in.” Inoichi still doesn’t look up, carefully sliding thornless roses into the arrangement. “She’ll make a splendid clan head.”

“Both of you are awful,” Shikaku tells them, and Ino laughs, waving a goodbye and trotting to the door, then pulling her sandals on. Her father’s voice rises, and Shikaku's lifts to match it, but the sound of their bickering falls away as she closes the door, and Ino picks up a run, heading for the Inuzuka Clan’s compound.

It’s not too far—the edges of it start about five blocks from the Yamanaka area, and Ino only has to follow the wall a few hundred feet on before she reaches the gate. A kunoichi and her pair of ninken block the path, but when Ino approaches the woman looks up, then smiles. It’s a toothy expression, but Ino's met the Inuzuka enough to know it’s just supposed to be friendly. She smiles back, offers her hand to the sleek black dog as he comes up to greet her, and says, “I've got a message for the clan head, from the jounin commander.”

“Is Shikaku trying to keep you out of trouble by having you run errands again?” the woman asks, amused, and tugs a clipboard down off the wall. She marks off a note, then whistles, and the big red ninken climbs to her feet, puts her shoulder against the gate, and shoves it open.

“I like to pretend it works, since he keeps paying me,” Ino says brightly, and the kunoichi laughs.

“Don’t let me hold you up, then. Tsume should be at the main house. Maybe around back—I thought I heard her in the garden earlier.”

“Thank you!” Ino waves and slips past, only pausing to scratch the red dog’s ears briefly. She leans into it, and Ino wishes briefly, desperately that her father would let them have a dog. The only ones well-enough behaved for the shop and the Yamanaka greenhouses are nin-dogs, though, and Ino's not silly enough to ask the Inuzuka for a dog that would just be a pet; that would be like turning a kunoichi into a civilian housewife.

Still, at least she gets to see the Inuzuka ninken whenever she delivers messages here, Ino thinks. She steals a glance up and down the narrow street between the rows of houses, and smiles at the sight of more dogs than people. There aren’t any she knows personally, though, so she keeps going, heading for the main house that sits directly across from the gate, big and sprawling and surprisingly stately, given what Ino knows of the Inuzuka as a whole.

As she gets close, though, she slows, then stops, a little startled. There's a boy on the steps, hair as red as blood, and he’s just about her age but she’s never seen him before. A massive white ninken with brown ears is sprawled out beside him, taking up nearly the entire step, and he lifts his head to look at Ino, then gives her a dog-grin, tongue lolling. The boy doesn’t seem to notice her; he’s staring at one of the bushes in the neat flowerbed, a familiar book open on his lap. As Ino watches, he turns a page, glancing at the plant listed there, and then narrows his eyes at the flower in front of him.

 _Oh_ , Ino thinks, starting to smile. That’s cute. She’s never seen a boy interested in flowers before, especially not to the point of looking them up.

“It’s a peony,” she says, and ignores the way the boy flinches, just as she ignores how Ibiki does the same thing when she sneaks up on him. Shinobi generally don’t care to acknowledge that they’ve been caught off guard. Coming closer, she offers the boy a smile as he whips around to look at her, and immediately drops down to sit on the stair below him. He freezes, eyes widening as uncertainty flickers across his face, but Ino doesn’t let it stop her. Some people are just shy, and Ino's more than happy to make the first move.

“…Peony,” the boy repeats after a long moment, still eying her a little warily.

“They’re one of my favorites,” Ino confirms, and reaches out, touching the ruffled petals. This is a particularly lovely variety, the color of bronze, and she leans in, taking a breath of its sweet smell. “They mean bravery.”

“Like a shinobi code?” the boy asks, and pale eyes slide back to the flower with renewed interest.

“They can be,” Ino tells him. “My clan uses them to send messages on missions sometimes. A lot of people just like knowing the meaning so they can give someone a nice bouquet, though.”

That gets her another glance, slightly less wary this time, or maybe the wariness is just buried by the curiosity rising in his face. “Do all flowers have different meanings?” he asks.

Ino tips her head, considering. “Well, there's some overlap, but for the most part they’re all different.” She glances over the flowerbed, then leans forward to point out the vine creeping along the edge of the porch. “That one’s honeysuckle, and it means generosity. And over there are azaleas, for patience and modesty. The purple ones are verbena, for cooperation.”

The boy studies them all for a moment, frowning faintly, and then says, “I don’t understand the message.”

Ino laughs, pulling back. “I don’t think there is one in this garden,” she says. “Tsume just likes the way they look, that’s all. A lot of people don’t care about the meanings.” His vaguely affronted expression makes her giggle, and she offers, “I'm Yamanaka Ino. I don’t think I've seen you before.”

There's a pause, just long enough for Ino to notice, before the boy says quietly, “Gaara.”

No clan name, but then, maybe one of the Inuzuka adopted him, Ino thinks. Or maybe he just doesn’t have one; a lot of shinobi don’t. “It’s nice to meet you,” she tells him. “If you like flowers, you should come by the Yamanaka Flower Shop. We have hundreds of different ones.”

“Hundreds,” Gaara repeats, vaguely bewildered. “Why are there so many?”

Ino shrugs. “Because they're all pretty, and they all deserve to be loved,” she says, because that’s the answer her father always gives her. “Just like people, right?”

That doesn’t do anything to take the consternation out of Gaara’s expression, but before Ino can ask what’s wrong the front door of the house creaks open. “Hey, Gaara—oh,” someone says, and Ino turns, quickly rising to her feet. A man is in the doorway, definitely an Inuzuka but not one she knows, with shaggy brown hair and a small goatee, seals tattooed around his wrists that march halfway up his forearms. He stares at Ino for a moment, looking surprised, and then smiles, bright and warm.

“Didn’t mean to interrupt,” he says. “Gaara, dinner’s gonna be in an hour.”

“All right,” Gaara says, but he doesn’t move, just glances back at the flowers. “Did you know peonies are for bravery?” he asks.

The man tips his head, squinting. “Uh. I don’t think I've ever heard that before, but if anyone would know it’s Ino.”

Ino blinks. That sounded like he knows her, but she’s completely certain she’s never met this man in her life—he’s hot enough that she would have remembered. “Do I know you?” she asks curiously.

The man offers her a grin. “My little brother was in your Academy class,” he says, and—

Well. Ino _definitely_ needs to punch Kiba for not telling her about his gorgeous older brother.

“I didn’t know Kiba had another sibling,” she says, and gives him her best smile.

With a laugh, he waves a hand. “I'm Kiba too,” he says. “Are you staying for dinner?”

Ino glances down at the scroll she’s carrying, then over at Gaara, who’s watching her again. Wary, she thinks, and offers him a smile. “Thank you, but not tonight, I think. Shikaku just wanted me to run an errand for him.” A little bit of stiffness slides back into Gaara's shoulders, just enough for Ino to notice, and—well. It’s like Sakura used to be, isn't it? She was always so worried about what people were going to think of her, shy and retiring and cautious of bullies, and Ino hates her obsession with Sasuke so fiercely, but…at least she’s happier now, right?

“You definitely have to come by the shop!” she tells Gaara, because it’s one thing to be shy, but it’s another entirely to expect everyone he meets to be some kind of enemy. “I’ll show you the greenhouses!”

Gaara looks her over for a long second, and then asks, “With the hundreds of flowers?”

“Hundreds of _kinds_ ,” Ino corrects with a laugh. “There are probably hundreds of thousands of flowers all together.”

The expression on Gaara's face is absolutely bewildered. “ _Why_?” he asks.

“Why not?” Ino counters, and Gaara doesn’t seem to have an answer to that. She smiles at him, then glances at the older Kiba and asks, “Is Tsume around?”

The man is watching her, expression something like soft as he leans in the doorway. “Yeah,” he says fondly. “In the kitchen, terrorizing the food. Go on in.”

Ino offers him a cheerful salute, then glances back at Gaara. “I should be done training by noon tomorrow, and we’re not doing missions afterward,” she says. “Do you want to come by the shop then?”

Gaara's gaze flickers from Ino to Kiba and back again. He pauses for a long moment, then says slowly, “I would like that, Ino.”

“Perfect!” She grins at him, then hops over the huge ninken and grins at Kiba, whose laughter follows her as she darts past him. The house beyond is familiar enough for her to find the kitchen easily, and she calls, “Message for you, Tsume-sama!”

“Drop the sama,” Tsume retorts, but she grins right back at Ino, wipes her hands on her pink apron, and takes the scroll Ino offers. “I hope you made Shikaku pay through the nose for this, sweetheart.”

“D-rank rates,” Ino confirms. “I’ll argue him up to B-rank at some point, though.”

“That’s a girl.” Tsume pats her shoulder, already breaking the seal and tugging the scroll open. “There’s fresh cookies on the table if you want one.”

Tsume is the _best_ , and Ino snags one without pause. “Thanks!” she says, and Tsume gives her an absent wave, eyes on the papers. It’s enough like a dismissal that Ino turns, trotting back out onto the porch. Gaara and Kiba aren’t in sight anymore, though she can hear their voices around the side of the house, but the ninken hasn’t moved. He whuffs happily when Ino reaches down to stroke his ears, shaggy tail thumping the steps, and Ino leaps over him again and picks up a jog.

She’s looking forward to tomorrow, really. Boys who are willing to admit they like flowers are rare, and Gaara seems sweet. A little reserved, but Ino hardly minds _that_. She’s outgoing enough for any two people. And while she’d had vague plans to spend time with Shikamaru, this promises to be _much_ more interesting.

 

 

At twelve or twenty-four, Ino is always the same, Kiba thinks, and it’s warm and grateful in his chest. He hadn’t counted on her friendliness, hadn’t thought about the rest of their class’s response to Gaara, but he’s glad Ino was the first Gaara met outside of Team 7.

“This is a peony as well,” Gaara decides, studying the deep purple bloom that leans over the edge of the deck.

“Far as I know,” Kiba agrees with a shrug, because that particular bush has been here since before his mom was born. “That’s Ino's favorite color. Maybe you should bring some to her tomorrow.”

Gaara frowns, like this is a very perplexing idea. “Ino likely has peonies already,” he says. It’s not quite a protest, more a request for clarification, and Kiba snorts.

“She does, but she might not have any in this color,” he tells Gaara. “And besides, it’s polite to bring something, isn’t it? If you do, that says _I was thinking of you_ , and people like that kind of thing.”

“Peonies mean bravery, not that you were thinking of someone,” Gaara says reprovingly, but he casts another look at the flower and pauses. “Are there flowers that mean that?”

This one Kiba actually knows. “Yeah, forget-me-nots. I don’t think we have any of them, though.”

Gaara's frown deepens for a moment before he inclines his head. “Then I will take her peonies,” he decides.

Kiba can't actually remember anyone ever giving Ino flowers; it was always her handing them out instead of receiving them, and given the way she loves them that strikes Kiba as more than a little unfair. Hopefully she’ll be happy to get some from Gaara, even if it’s just a friendly gesture.

“She’ll like that,” he says, and grins when Gaara glances up at him. “Look at you, making friends left and right.”

Gaara freezes, eyes widening. “…Friends,” he says slowly.

Maybe it’s a _little_ bit of an exaggeration—Kiba is willing to bet Ino put most of the effort into that first meeting—but it’s a hell of a lot better than Gaara having to get punched into submission by Naruto and Kurama before he realizes he can form human connections.

“Yeah,” Kiba agrees, keeps it casual, easy. “Naruto and Sakura liked you, didn’t they? And now Ino. Maybe Sasuke, but who can tell with that jerk?” Not Kiba, definitely—whatever they were together, it still took him by surprise when Naruto told him Sasuke was _fond_ of him.

For a long moment, Gaara is perfectly silent, doesn’t even seem to breathe. Then, quietly, he says, “They don’t know what I am.”

“ _I_ know,” Kiba reminds him, and he steps closer, rests a hand on Gaara's shoulder. Meets pale eyes as they stare up at him, and smiles. “I’d call you my friend, Gaara. And I think that if they _are_ your friends, what you are won't matter to them at all.”

Gaara's expression darkens, and just for a moment there's a seethe of chakra around him, something heavy and abrasive. “They always care,” he says bitterly, and presses a hand over his scar, fingers digging into his skin around the character. “I'm a _monster_ , and they know it.”

Gaara doesn’t have his gourd with him, left it behind in what Kiba took as a promising sign, but beneath the porch moving soil hisses, shifts. Kiba doesn’t move, though; he stays where he is, not budging an inch, because Gaara's expression right now is Shino at his angriest, in the moments he hated being different. Rare, after they graduated, but—Kiba saw them. He doesn’t let them scare him now, either, just says, “You're not a monster, Gaara.”

For a second the rings around Gaara's eyes are darker, and the sand coating his skin shivers, moves like it’s forming heavy scales. “You have no right to say that,” Gaara says darkly. “You don’t know what I am.”

Kiba hesitates, but—well. Rasa's dead. There's something to be said for not speaking ill of him, but there’s also _Gaara_. It’s easy to decide which Kiba values more.

“Your dad was an asshole,” he says, and Gaara blinks, raises his head to stare at Kiba suspiciously. Kiba tries to let him see every ounce of honesty behind the words as he says, “You know that, right? He was a dick, and he shouldn’t have sealed Shukaku in his own son, and he shouldn’t have used a crappy seal just so you’d be a better weapon. You're a _kid_ , it’s _normal_ that you’d get angry or scared and lose control. But your dad didn’t get that, or he didn’t care, so what you did before? That’s on him.”

“I am a shinobi,” Gaara says roughly. “My actions are my own—”

“Yeah,” Kiba interrupts. “But when you were two years old? Three? Rasa shouldn’t have stuffed something as powerful as Shukaku inside you when he _knew_ the seal was unstable, so that’s his fault.”

The expression that twists across Gaara's face is anger, pain, frustration. His nails ding furrows into his skin, and his breath hitches. “My _father_ ,” he spits, “is not the one who killed Yashamaru!”

The shout rings in the quiet, sudden and almost shocking for all that Kiba expected it. he lets it fall there between them, and Gaara is breathing hard, sand swimming over his skin.

“No,” Kiba says quietly. “He’s not. But he’s the one who ordered Yashamaru to attack you and lie about the reason. Yashamaru loved you, Gaara. He didn’t want to attack you, but he hoped that the seal was stronger than it was.”

Gaara doesn’t move, doesn’t even breathe. He stares at Kiba, like he doesn’t know what to do next, and then swallows.

“What?” he asks, and his voice trembles.

Gods, this kid. “It was a mission,” Kiba says gently, and crouches down so that they're eye-level. “Gaara, Yashamaru didn’t want to hurt you, but Rasa ordered him to test your control. It was a shitty thing to do, and he shouldn’t have done it when _he’s_ the one who put that seal on you to begin with, but Yashamaru did it so that Rasa would leave you alone.”

“And I killed him for it,” Gaara says dully. “I—”

“You _didn’t_ ,” Kiba insists. “Automatic defense, Gaara. _Automatic_. You couldn’t stop yourself. Your sand reacts as soon as you know you're in danger, and you _were_. Yashamaru attacked you, and you didn’t know he was on a mission. You reacted like a shinobi. You were the _victim_.”

Another long, long moment of silence, and then Gaara says, voice cracking, “It doesn’t make him any less dead.”

Kiba doesn’t hesitate; he drags Gaara down into a hug, sits down hard on the porch and pulls the kid into his lap, wrapping his arms around him. “I know,” he says. “I'm so fucking sorry, Gaara. I'm sorry that you lost him, and I'm sorry that he did that, and I wish I could make it better.”

Gaara's breath is ragged, and he curls his fingers into Kiba's shirt, presses his forehead to Kiba's collarbone. He doesn’t say anything else, but he doesn’t move, either, and Kiba hangs onto him, doesn’t let up even for a second. Wants to say _it will be all right_ , but—that’s not the point, is it? It _wasn’t_ all right, what happened, and that’s what’s hurting right now.

“You getting your seal fixed would have made Yashamaru so damn happy,” Kiba finally says. “An’ so would you having friends. Being a jinchuuriki doesn’t make you a monster. It makes you strong, and you can use that strength to protect people.”

Silently, Gaara nods, then lets out a breath and sits up. For a moment he keeps his head ducked, his eyes down, but when he raises them his cheeks are dry, without any sign of tears.

“Should we pick the flowers now?” he asks, and if his voice wavers a little, Kiba isn't going to mention it.

He smiles at Gaara, reaches out to scuff his wild hair. “I think wee should do that tomorrow,” he says. “Cut flowers don’t last forever, and you want them to be fresh.”

“They’ll die?” Gaara asks, like he hadn’t considered this. “Won’t that make her sad?”

“You’ll just have to bring her more,” Kiba says, and rocks to his feet, wincing when the wound in his side pulls. “Ugh, too fast.”

“Kiba?” Gaara asks, alarmed, and he rises too, gets a hand on Kiba's arm as if he’s going to try and hold him up.

“I'm fine,” Kiba promises, catches a baleful stare, and rolls his eyes. “Don’t give me that look, okay? I’ll see a medic at some point. But I'm not about to die, so it’s not urgent.”

Gaara doesn’t seem convinced, but he nods. There are advantages to him having no idea how non-jinchuuriki people heal. Clapping him lightly on the shoulder, Kiba applies a little pressure, steers him towards the side door.

“Mom’s probably got dinner almost done by now,” he says. “We should get washed up and help her set things out. She likes stuff like that.”

Tipping his sandals off, Gaara glances around the room, then opens his mouth—

Somewhere distant, a door slams open. “Mom!” a familiar voice shouts, and Kiba can't help but grin reflexively. Now _this_ is going to be fun. “Mom, who’s that on the steps? He smells like Akamaru!”

“You're _late_ ,” Tsume barks back. “You know when I put dinner on the table every night, pup.”

A yelp, and Gaara frowns, uncertain, even as that voice complains, “ _Mom_ , don’t _smack_ me, Kurenai-sensei kept us late!”

“He’s fine,” Kiba tells Gaara. “Mom just spent too much time around the bitches. She’ll cuff your ear if she’s irritated at you.”

Gaara relaxes faintly, nodding, and follows Kiba towards the kitchen as the loud demand rises. “So who’s that ninken? He’s huge!”

“That’s Akamaru,” Tsume says, and she’s grinning, all teeth and anticipation. Her eyes go to Kiba as he steps in, and he grins back. “Shouldn’t you recognize your own nin-dog, pup?”

Tiny and high-pitched, the miniature Akamaru clutched in his younger self’s arm yips in clear offense, and a beat behind baby-Kiba protests, “But he’s _not_ , this is Akamaru! Are you going senile—”

“You sure you want to poke that dragon?” Kiba cuts in, because Tsume’s expression is twisting. He watches his younger self twitch hard, spin, and meets widening eyes with a cheeky wave. “Hey there!”

Baby-Kiba's mouth drops open, and little Akamaru squeaks. They both freeze, and Kiba can see his younger self take a reflexive inhale before his mouth drops open in confusion.

Silently, Gaara steps past Kiba, glances at his younger self, looks back at Kiba, and then says thoughtfully, “He looks like you, Kiba.”

Baby-Kiba splutters, pulls himself up. “ _I'm_ Kiba!” he protests. “Who are _you_?”

Kiba snorts. “You,” he says, “plus a few extra years. Hey there, squirt! I forgot what a shrimp I was at twelve.”

The expression on his double’s face almost makes all the stress of time travel worthwhile just for that.


End file.
